Sandy Creek · Travis County, Texas

Some places quietly shape the people who love them.

For thirty-six years, Asher Acres was one of those places. On July 5, 2025, a flood took nearly all of it. We are rebuilding — stronger, higher, and open to everyone.

Our story

$600,000

still needed to finish the rebuild

$343,000

already given by the Sandy Creek community and our extended family — in donations, labor, and materials

$500,000

committed by our family from our own funds

58% secured

$843,000 secured $1,443,000 total rebuild

Progress across every source — community donations, donated labor and materials, and our family's own commitment. Gifts made here go to Gifted Dreamers' Sandy Creek Flood Recovery Fund. Gifted Dreamers' board has designated Asher Acres as the fund's current priority, up to $600,000. Contributions beyond that will support other unmet needs in the Sandy Creek community. Gifted Dreamers retains full discretion over how all gifts are used.

The swing tree at Asher Acres before the flood: a wooden bench swing hanging over the green water of Sandy Creek, with mown grass running down to the bank.
The swing tree, before
The same tree after the flood. It is still standing and in leaf, but the swing is gone, the grass has been stripped to bare dirt and gravel, and the creek has cut a new channel behind it.
The same tree, after — the swing is gone

What happened

Five generations of our family gathered at Asher Acres to celebrate milestones, care for one another, and steward the land. Before dawn on July 5, 2025, floodwaters took three family homes, our family spice business, the barns, vehicles, livestock, and decades of work. Across Sandy Creek, neighbors lost homes too, and lives were lost.

In the days that followed, what was left of our property became a gathering place — for volunteers, churches, nonprofits, neighbors, and public agencies working to help families recover. Those relationships became partnerships, and those partnerships became organizations that are still working today.

Read the full story →

A living demonstration

We could rebuild what was here. Instead we are building what the flood taught us to build — and making it something other rural families can walk through, price out, and copy.

Built to endure

Homes raised roughly ten feet in the air to clear the floodplain by two, with solar, battery storage, and rainwater harvesting for power and water when the grid goes down.

Working with the creek

Riparian restoration, native grasses, and pollinator habitat that slow runoff, hold banks, and bring wildlife back — instead of fighting the water.

Common ground

The elevated lower level cannot be lived in, so it becomes shared space: a community meeting room, a workshop, and the family spice business.

Architectural rendering of the rebuilt home: a long metal-roofed house raised on columns, with a covered porch running its full length on the upper floor and open, unenclosed space beneath it at ground level.
Rendering of the rebuilt home, elevated above the floodplain

See the plan and budget →

Who we are

The Asher Acres Institute for Rural Resilience is a fiscally sponsored project of Gifted Dreamers, Inc., a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit — EIN 39-3863796. Our family helped establish the Sandy Creek Alliance and the Travis County Recovery Alliance, and has worked on flood recovery in this community for more than a year.

In the news

All coverage and our recovery work →