Angelica Village

Background Statement

The seeds of Angelica Village were sown on a snowy evening in December 2014 when a group of people, young and old, multi-racial and varied in education and background, met in a living room and talked about the benefits of community and mutual aid as a means for changing the assumptions of how traditional non-profit organizations work. The goal was to be a community first, with non-profit services provided so that all members could grow in security and resilience.

This had been a growing impulse in Renata Heberton as a teenager in the Waldorf School and through her college years pursuing a Master of Social Work degree. She believed there must be a better way.

As part of her MSW she interned at The House of Peace, a Camphill community in Massachusetts which welcomes refugees and helps them establish their lives in the US.

Camphill came about through the work of Karl Konig, an Austrian pediatrician, and a small group of his students. In 1938, after the annexation of Austria by Hitler, they were forced to flee and were granted asylum in the UK in 1939. There they established a home for children with special needs which grew into a worldwide movement of schools and villages for children and adults with developmental disabilities. Camphill was, and still is to a large extent, focused on developmental disabilities, with a strong agricultural component. However, Karl Konig’s original vision included a global task to help counteract “the threat to the individuality of the human being which has arisen everywhere.” Included in this vision was a strong impulse towards community building, healing and rehabilitation for those with mental illness and physical disabilities as well as the guidance of orphans and refugees.

Out of this, the House of Peace was born, and Renata was inspired by their work.

A few months after the initial meeting in 2014, Renata and her friend and collaborator Amy van der Kamp moved into a farmhouse in Lakewood with good friends – a couple with two young children. They were joined by an undocumented minor from Guatemala and a young woman from a Native American reservation who wanted to finish her education at the Denver Waldorf School.

Meanwhile, Amy and Renata had obtained their foster care license, and soon received a request to take in a sibling group of three from Uganda. There was no room in the inn! However, fortuitously, a larger farmhouse across the road came up for sale. A GoFundMe campaign was set up and miraculously $30,000 was raised in the nick of time for a down payment.

Over the next years, with tremendous support from the local Denver community, other houses in the vicinity were offered towards the project as rentals at below-market-rate; a generous donor put up the money to convert the garage of the main farmhouse into an apartment and community space . . . and the people came – young, old, families and singles; refugees, undocumented folks from Central America, US Americans coming out of homelessness. Some had to be turned away due to lack of space, but often the spaces seemed to miraculously morph and suddenly there was a room after all.

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As of 2025, the community has grown to over 150 community members who are supported by Angelica Village through our services and programs on a day to day basis. Many others come simply for meals or receive food and clothing assistance as they are able. Our four main languages in the community are Dari, Spanish, Swahili and English with multiple other languages also spoken. Our youngest community member will be born in February 2026 and our oldest member is now 76. Geographically we represent countries from the Middle East, Africa, central, south and north Americas. We have all come to give what we can to others and receive what we need for ourselves and our families in all ways from physical, emotional, physiological and spiritual.