NEWS FROM HOLDEN VILLAGE

Update from Holden Village 12/21/25

Highlights from Holden Village Co-Exec. Director, Elise Peterson's recent note: The outpouring of support and generosity we have seen from this community is truly remarkable. It is a light that shines in this darkness, and gives me tremendous hope that this community will endure.

Because Holden Village is much more than a small, former mining town in the Railroad Creek Valley. Holden Village is a community that holds and supports each other. That acts as Jesus’s hands and feet in this world. We have come together before to weather difficult storms, and I have so much hope and faith that we will come together again.

For those of you who want to know how you can help, there is still so much we are figuring out about what the next few months will look like. But there are three things you can do to help us right now.

First, if you have not already, please consider a financial contribution to Holden Village. A donation of any amount will help with Holden’s continued operations and support the staff members who have been uprooted from their Village home. You can donate directly at this link or mail your contribution to:

Holden Village, HC 0 Box 2, Chelan, WA 98816

Second, if you know of any gig work, or short or long-term employment opportunities we can share with our displaced staff, especially remote work or located in Washington or the Twin Cities areas, please email those to us at hr@holdenvillage.org.

Third, please send us your messages of hope. Holden Village is being called to ventures of which we cannot see the ending. But the hope of this community will help us go out with good courage. Please consider recording a quick video or sending a message to us, letting us know what gives you hope for Holden’s future. Please email those to eric.development@holdenvillage.org or drop them into this Google Drive folder.

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We continue to lift prayers for Holden Village and the dispersed staff … inlcuding the remaining skeleton crew that unfortunately were evacuated from Holden Village on 12/20. From Holden:

"Last Wednesday morning, six days after landslides destroyed FS 8301, the latest round of winter storms downed hundreds of trees in the Copper Creek Valley, where Holden’s diversion dam sends water to the hydroelectric plant. One of those trees destroyed the intake pipe for the penstock, the large pipe that routes water from Copper Creek into the plant. Efforts were made on Wednesday and Thursday to assess and repair the system, while the Village functioned on the back-up generator. Unfortunately, attempts to create a temporary repair for the dam were unsuccessful. Facing new rounds of severe winter weather, the difficult decision was made to winterize the Village as much as possible while we reassess how to safely care for the Village in the coming months." Prayers arising...