Empyrean Farm: Growing Community, Growing Roots

Imagine a place where your hands touch the soil, where seeds become food, and where ancient building methods meet modern sustainability. That's Empyrean Farm.

We're building more than a farm—we're creating a thriving educational hub. Through relationship-based regenerative practices, we're helping people reconnect with the land, discover where their food comes from, and learn the art of natural building.

Your support funds the essential infrastructure that makes this vision real: structures for hands-on learning, resources for seed saving, and spaces where community can gather to grow together. Every dollar directly enables transformative experiences that benefit both people and the land.

This is about restoring our relationship with nature—one person, one seed, one connection at a time. Join us in creating a place where learning flourishes and the earth heals.

THE PROJECT

Empyrean Farm is building the foundational infrastructure needed to welcome apprentices, host workshops, and offer immersive learning experiences rooted in regenerative practice and community. This includes replacing the well pump system, installing composting toilets, upgrading electrical and water systems in existing structures, initiating a rainwater harvesting system to reduce draw from the aquifer, and laying the foundation and roofing for a communal kitchen and bathhouse that will be timber-framed by workshop participants in September 2026.

Once this infrastructure is in place, the farm will host six-month seasonal apprenticeships and an expanding calendar of hands-on workshops across four areas of practice: agroecological farming, seed saving and food sovereignty, natural building, and permaculture-based land regeneration.

Apprentices who complete a season at Empyrean Farm will leave with the ability to grow food using regenerative methods, save and steward open-pollinated seeds, design and build structures using locally sourced natural materials, and read and restore degraded landscapes using permaculture-based water and soil systems. They will also leave having lived and worked in genuine community, carrying that experience of mutual care and shared purpose into whatever they build next. These are practical, immediately applicable skills. Graduates will be equipped to start their own market gardens and farm stands, build homes and community structures for a fraction of the cost and environmental impact of conventional construction, teach others what they have learned, and contribute to food security and land regeneration in their own communities. Workshop participants gain focused, hands-on competency in a single discipline that they can put to use right away, whether that is framing a structure, building water harvesting earthworks, or growing and saving seed.

OUR APPROACH

The educational programming at Empyrean Farm is built around learning by doing. Every workshop produces something functional for the farm, and every apprentice contributes directly to food production for the surrounding community. But the approach goes deeper than skill-building. Apprentices live on the land together, share meals, and participate in experiences designed to foster genuine connection with each other, with the land, and with themselves. Kelly Kelsey, co-founder of Wisdom Weavers of the World and founder of the Earthways nature school, leads land-connection experiences rooted in teachings she has received through years of working alongside Indigenous Elders from cultures around the globe. Jeremy Dehnert, drawing on seven years of mentorship through Journeymen's nature-based rites of passage programs, supports participants through the personal growth that comes with immersive community living. The result is an environment where people do not just learn skills. They learn how to be in relationship with a place and with each other.

Natural building is central to the practical curriculum. Timber framing, strawbale, hempcrete, and earthen plaster use locally sourced materials, dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of construction, and produce healthier, more fire-resistant structures than conventional building systems. Conventional materials are carbon-intensive to manufacture, rely on toxic chemicals, and are designed for a supply chain rather than a place. Natural building starts with what the land and region can provide. The structures built at Empyrean Farm will be built by the people who come to learn, demonstrating that these methods are practical, beautiful, and replicable.

Seasonal apprentices will be housed in bell tents and temporary structures during the growing season, which is why the program begins with six-month seasonal apprenticeships rather than year-round residencies. The first permanent living space, a tiny home framed during the July 2026 women's carpentry workshop, will serve as housing for a year-round apprentice or visiting guest instructor. Additional permanent structures will be built through future workshops and funding phases, gradually expanding capacity for year-round apprenticeships.

WHY NOW

The workshops are scheduled. The instructors are committed. The well pump is already being replaced. What stands between where the farm is today and where it needs to be is the infrastructure to welcome people safely and comfortably onto the land.

The need for these skills has never been more pressing. Food costs are rising and supply chains are fragile. Rural communities are losing access to fresh produce. Conventional housing is increasingly unaffordable and environmentally destructive. The people who know how to grow food, save seeds, build with natural materials, and restore land are aging, and there are not enough younger people learning from them. Every season that passes without a place for people to learn this work is a season of knowledge that does not get passed on.

The total infrastructure need for this phase is estimated between $45,000 and $50,000 when accounting for tools, equipment, temporary housing, and materials beyond what workshop fees cover. The funding goal has been set at $30,000 to focus on the most critical systems: water, sanitation, electrical, and the communal kitchen and bathhouse. Any support raised beyond the $30,000 goal will be applied directly to the next layer of infrastructure, bringing the educational center closer to full operational capacity sooner.

This funding closes the infrastructure gap and opens the door to everything that follows: more workshops, seasonal apprenticeships, increased food production for the community, and a growing network of people who leave Empyrean Farm able to feed, shelter, and sustain their own communities using regenerative practices. The return on this investment is not only what happens on this farm. It is what every person who learns here goes on to do.

OUR TEAM AND PARTNERS

Eliza Steele brings eight years of farming experience (five running Empyrean Farm), fifteen years of architectural design, and five years of conventional construction. She trained in timber framing under Robert Laporte of EcoNest and earthen plaster with Benito Steen of the Canelo Project, and this August is attending a timber framing workshop in Port Angeles with Benito Steen, Oso Steen, and Jenna Pollard, continuing to deepen the practice she will bring back to teach.

Before her seven years with Rotary International, Eliza led the composting toilet component of the Shillong Clean Water Project in northeastern India on her own volition. The city subsequently built public composting toilets, having seen what was possible. With Rotary, she served as Global Grant Chair, sat on the District 5030 Global Grant Committee, and led a $185,000 maternal health grant in Myanmar from inception through implementation.

Eliza serves as Vice Chair of the Whatcom Agricultural Advisory Committee and steering committee member of the Foothills Community Food Partnership, and actively collaborates with the Whatcom Conservation District, Foothills Food Bank, Organic Seed Alliance, and Northwest Agriculture Business Center.

Jeremy Dehnert co-owns and operates Empyrean Farm alongside Eliza, working the land daily. Beyond farming, Jeremy brings seven years of mentorship experience with Journeymen, a Washington-based nonprofit that guides young men through nature-based rites of passage, social-emotional learning, and community mentoring. His experience supporting people through transformative experiences in nature is integral to how apprentices will be held during their time on the farm.

Kelly Kelsey is a co-founder of Wisdom Weavers of the World, a collaborative initiative within the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways that brings together Indigenous Elders and Earth activists to share sacred teachings and wisdom for living in balance with the natural world. Kelly also founded and runs Earthways, a nature school, and stewards a significant amount of land surrounding Empyrean Farm. Her role in the educational center is to coordinate learning experiences with the Elders she works with and to guide participants toward a deeper, more rooted relationship with the land through practices she has cultivated over years of walking alongside Indigenous knowledge keepers from diverse cultures.

Workshop instructors include Kyle Babcock of Biodiverse Designs, who works with land stewards across the region on soil health and regenerative land design, and Brian Kerkvliet of Inspiration Farm, who has been teaching integrated permaculture systems since 1994. The immediate neighbors of Empyrean Farm are homesteaders, farmers, and skilled tradespeople who steward their own land using the same regenerative practices and form a natural teaching ecosystem that apprentices and workshop participants will be immersed in.

EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE

The property has several existing structures that support the farm's operations and provide the foundation for the educational center. The old cow barn is the primary structure used for farming operations and seed production. A solar array, funded through a previous grant, already powers an adjacent workshop area. A former mechanic shop ("the shop") is being converted into a dedicated woodworking and natural building workshop; it needs electrical upgrades, water connection, and structural repairs including framing, siding, gutters, and doors. A well pump replacement is currently underway.

What seasonal apprentices need in order to live on the land is not permanent housing but supporting infrastructure: reliable water, sanitation, a communal kitchen for shared meals, and electrical capacity. That is exactly what this funding provides. The communal kitchen and bathhouse structure does not yet exist, but the timber framing workshop planned for September 2026 will bring it into being. Participants will frame the building themselves as the central project of that workshop, learning the craft while creating the very infrastructure that makes the educational center sustainable.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

Months 1 to 3

Replace well pump system to ensure reliable water supply across the property
Install composting toilets and sanitation infrastructure for expanded hosting capacity
Begin structural repairs to the shop: framing, siding, gutters, and doors

Months 3 to 6

Complete electrical and water upgrades to support farming operations and educational programming
Complete shop electrical upgrades, water connection, and structural repairs to establish a fully operational natural building workshop space

Property ready to host overnight workshop participants

Months 7 to 9 (Summer 2026 workshop season)

Host the women's basic carpentry workshop with three women instructors; frame a tiny home that will serve as the first permanent on-site housing for an apprentice or guest instructor
Host the water and land regeneration workshop with Kyle Babcock and Brian Kerkvliet; design and build functional ponds and swales on the property
Host the timber framing workshop; frame the communal kitchen and bathhouse structure as the group project, with foundation and roofing covered by grant funding

Months 10 to 12

Complete communal kitchen and bathhouse utilities, roofing, and finishing work
Complete tiny home interior for year-round occupancy
Recruit first six-month seasonal apprenticeship cohort
Plan expanded workshop calendar based on operational capacity

Months 12 to 18

Welcome the first six-month seasonal apprenticeship cohort
All foundational infrastructure operational
Workshop frequency expanding as capacity allows

Tiny home occupied by first year-round apprentice or guest instructor

THIS IS PHASE ONE

This funding establishes the foundation. What grows from it is a living, expanding educational center that deepens with each season and each cohort of people who come to learn.

Future funding phases will support the construction of additional cabins and tiny homes for year-round apprentices, built using the same natural building methods taught in the workshops. Expanded workshop facilities, increased tool and material inventories, and a growing calendar of programming will follow as capacity increases. The farm's seed production and food growing operations will scale alongside the educational center, increasing the volume of fresh produce available to the surrounding community through the farm stand.

As the educational center matures, the project will also expand onto adjacent properties stewarded by Kelly Kelsey, whose land surrounds Empyrean Farm. This creates the potential for a broader landscape of interconnected learning spaces, where apprentices and participants can engage with diverse ecosystems, varied terrain, and a wider range of land-based practices across multiple properties held by people who share the same values and vision.

Every structure built at Empyrean Farm will be built by the people who come to learn. Every season of apprentices will produce more food for the community and more people equipped to carry these practices home. As the network of graduates grows, so does the reach: each person who returns to their own community with these skills becomes a point of origin for regenerative practice, carrying forward not only what they learned to do but how they learned to live. That multiplying effect is the true return on this investment, and it begins with the infrastructure this funding makes possible.

PROJECT IN NUMBERS

37 acres under regenerative stewardship

$40,000 phase one infrastructure funding

3 confirmed workshops in 2026

18 months to first seasonal apprenticeship

4 pillars of programming

6+ partner organizations