A Welcoming Space

A Welcoming Space Cabin Village Commons Completed

Since breaking ground on January 14, 2021, the new Commons building rapidly took shape! In early April 2021, we got a glimpse of its silhouette as the first wall was lifted into place. By Autumn, we were installing living roof components with a team of volunteers, and this spring (2022) we were finalizing landscape and patio installation. Sarah Manchester and Howard Aposhyan, long time members of our program leader community, were the first to host a gathering in the new space in spring 2022. We are so excited to see people connecting, learning, and playing in this beautiful, multi-purpose gathering space. Featuring a gathering place, kitchen, and bathrooms for program participants and volunteers, the Commons substantially increases our capacity for transformational hosting. We are so grateful to each of you who helped us reach this milestone with dedicated gifts totalling $1,250,000 since 2019. This includes significant funding of $287,000 from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust and nearly $1 Million donated by individual donors like you! We also thank volunteer Project Manager Tucker Stevens, who stepped up to this role during his board service; designer Matthew Swett and landscape designer Sarah Birger at Taproot Architects; builder Dan Neumeyer and the crew at Jade Craftsman Builders; site work contractors J & D Wallace; and staff member Thomas Arthur for managing arising needs onsite.

Our special gratitude goes out to Nancy Nordhoff for her matching gift of $200,000, and to Andy Anderson who gave $135,000 to ensure we could move forward with Commons construction in 2021. We also owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Sharon Daloz Parks and Larry Parks Daloz, two Whidbey Institute Senior Fellows for whom the Commons has been a long-tended dream. Their outreach and fundraising efforts in 2019, including relationship-building with the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, helped secure a total of $549,000 for the Commons. We thank you, donors, for your multi-year pledges and one-time gifts—many given in honor of Sharon and Larry.

“I’ve lived on the island for 20 years, but this is the first time I stayed at the Whidbey Institute. It was a lovely experience, from the beautiful surroundings to the serene accommodations and the amazing new meeting space. The food was amazing. I thoroughly appreciated every aspect of my short stay and can’t think of a single way to improve it. Also, the event hosted by Sarah and Howard was seminal. They make a wonderful team and I would consider attending more retreats hosted by them.”

—Marni Zimmerman