[Updated Dec 2, 2025] In September, 2024, Earthaven Ecovillage suffered significant impacts from Hurricane Helene (Sept 2024). With 22+ inches of rainfall in 2-1/2 days, Hurricane Helene is the biggest storm this land has seen in Earthaven’s 30-year lifetime and well beyond it.

Hurricane Helene brought some of the highest rainfall, highest river levels, and most severe flooding ever observed across the region.

The damage in the region is extensive. Lives were lost. Homes, businesses, farms, and infrastructure were destroyed. Lots of ecological destruction. Lots of suffering. Many in Western North Carolina have lost everything.

The good news for us at Earthaven is, no one in our little mountain village was injured, and all of our residents were safe, fed and housed.

The heartbreaking news is, the creeks overflowed so much, so quickly, and with such force, that they wreaked damage on our ecovillage that will take months or years, and resources we do not have, to recover.

The flooding took out many of our roads and destroyed or severely compromised all three of our bridges. We had damage to our water systems, off-grid power systems, and agriculture infrastructure. The ground became so saturated that huge trees fell, many of which blocked our roads and pathways, and some of which severely damaged one home and moderately damaged several others.

The Hobbit House, Oct 2024

Footbridges washed away, including one connecting a neighborhood to the Village Center, which was battered by rushing water into a pile of sticks and piled against a collapsed cement road bridge. Our Free Store for resource-sharing was displaced from its foundation and will need to be dismantled.

Trees and landslides on both of the two roads leading to the ecovillage have limited our access and egress.

But Earthaven Immediately Organized Rapid Response

As we do, we came together to organize and mobilize efforts towards restoring access, making sure everyone continued to have what they needed to maintain health and safety, and assisting others in the surrounding community.

Amidst the devastation, people throughout the region came together around this shared experience, transcending ideological and other divides, to ensure the safety of all. We experienced extraordinary examples of selfless service, rescue efforts, and strength within our local communities.

We humbly reached out to broaden our web of connection and support in this time of great need.

We reached out for help with the restoration efforts of basic access and systems (roads, bridges, and utility systems, agriculture repairs, buildings), as well as emergency response costs for food and supplies, and improvements to secure our access and off-grid utilities in preparation for future weather events. The infrastructure damage was (and still is) unprecedented, and will take years of work to repair and upgrade for greater stability in future weather events.

While our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure were in disrepair, a primary source of community income — our in person workshops, retreats, tours, and venue rentals — had to be canceled. This had significant impacts on the ecovillage economy, since our educational events provide employment for a number of our members. Other sources of individual income — lodging rentals for temporary visitors, our plant nursery, and certain agricultural operations — were also interrupted. This limited the ability of our members to finance recovery work from our own resources.

Our Extended Community Came Through For Us!

Hundreds of supporters donated funds to help us cover emergency costs, restore our village infrastructure, and mitigate the impacts of lost revenues. We applied for and received grants from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, The Amador Foundation, National Christian Foundation, the Triangle Community Foundation, and others.

We are no longer in crisis, but we continue to fundraise for the expensive work ahead, which includes moving part of our main road out of the floodplain, where it was built over a hundred years ago, long before Earthaven arrived. We are replacing at least one bridge, and likely two, and repairing a third. We're mitigating an unstable landslide area, restoring our creekbanks, replacing lost footbridges, and eventually, clearing the extensive treefall.

Throughout this experience, we have been letting nature teach us how to live more regeneratively and resiliently on this land. The creek wants its floodplain back, and we are honoring the request. Our rebuilding plan includes moving entry road and bridge to higher, safer ground, and ceding the natural wetlands back to its wiser functions.

For more updates on how your support is resulting in progress, please visit our facebook and sign up for our newsletter. If you prefer to donate through other means, you can do so on the donation page of our website. Supporters have asked if they can donate by mail, and the answer is YES. Checks can be made out to Culture’s Edge (Earthaven's nonprofit partner) and sent to: 5 Consensus Circle, Black Mountain, NC 28711.

Our deep, abiding gratitude goes out to all who are still working to provide assistance to those impacted by this extreme climate event and longer term climate change solutions.

Please share this GoFundMe to help Earthaven rebuild. Thank you!

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Earthaven is an aspiring ecovillage of 100 people, clustered in 14 neighborhoods, within 329-acres of mountain forests near Asheville, North Carolina. We are dedicated to caring for people and the Earth by learning, living, and demonstrating a holistic, regenerative culture.

Culture's Edge is a nonprofit organization based at Earthaven since 1996 and dedicated to supporting, demonstrating, and catalyzing the development of healthy, sustainable, and regenerative culture.