Interview. Brest: five years after creating Sapristi, Baptiste Davout leaves the association

Sapristi is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. The charity bookstore now has two locations, one on Rue de La Porte and the other at PAM. Baptiste Davout, who initiated the project and is the director of the structure, plans to leave Brest for Normandy, where he is from.

You announced that you are looking for a new association manager. Are you leaving?

Yes, we are looking for someone to fill my position. I just celebrated my 30th birthday, I had a lightbulb moment. I am from Normandy. I want to be closer to my family, my nephews, my friends, even if I am in love with Brest. I am thinking of creating an association of this type there, probably in Caen. I will probably leave at the end of the year, it will come quickly!

We have received many applications, with very good profiles. Interviews will take place in the coming days.

Sapristi was born in 2019. Can you tell us about the timeline of this adventure?

Yes, I had this idea, and I talked about it in your newspaper. The feedback was great, my phone was ringing off the hook. We received many donations.

The idea of ​​the project was to create a solidarity bookstore, oriented towards the employment of people with disabilities. Little by little, we saw the importance of social ties through volunteering, some took up an activity here. Today there are 120 of us, with a solid core of 30 volunteers. This volunteering is very free, we do not impose anything. If someone just wants to help run a shop once a month, that’s fine. So no one ever comes backwards.

After opening the first store in Recouvrance in December 2020, we opened at PAM in January 2023.

The beginnings weren’t too complicated?

If a little, we had several storage rooms. Today we have a large stock of books in 160 m², it’s crazy. We were lucky enough to benefit from financial aid, and the welcome from the people of Brest was incredible when we opened in Recou.

We still have so many people there, despite the second opening. We sell 35 to 40,000 euros of books in each store per year. We have two jobs, mine and that of Agathe, who is responsible for Sapristi at PAM.

Sapristi is also behind many events.

Yes, we launched the Marinades and the Hivernales. The Marinades are starting again this summer, every other Friday starting July 26. We do a show with Radio Mutine, we organize events in the stores… We have to keep this momentum going.

In the future? Becoming a bookstore café in Recouvrance is always a project and creating a new position would be great. You have to be enthusiastic and tell yourself that everything is possible.

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