Hayden unveils Give as you Go community support program
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 month, 3 weeks AGO
Hayden Homes has developed more than a dozen neighborhoods in Moses Lake including Polo Ridge, shown here. Hayden recently inaugurated its Give as you Go program, to help disadvantaged families own homes and to contribute to local nonprofits.
FILE PHOTO
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | May 1, 2026 3:00 AM
REDMOND, Ore. — Hayden Homes, the Oregon-based builder behind more than a dozen Moses Lake housing developments, announced recently that it is pledging $25 million in charitable giving over the next four years through its Give as you Go initiative.
“It always kind of bothered me when my friends’ companies would be like ‘Hey, it’s Christmas, so we should give back,’” said Hayden Homes CEO Dennis Murphy. “And as silly as it sounds, the thing in my head was, ‘Why’d you take so much in the first place?’ If you have to stop and give back, doesn’t it make more sense to just not take as much and give as you go?”
There are two key pillars to the Give as you Go fund, according to the announcement. The first directly involves homeowners: For each new home sold, Hayden will donate $300 to the fund. Part of that will go to a nonprofit selected with the home buyer’s input.
“If a customer is very passionate about Boys and Girls Club or YMCA or whatever it is, they can nominate that effort and that will be listed as one of the possible places where those funds go,” Murphy said.
The rest of the $300 will go to First Story, Hayden’s nonprofit lender aimed at creating affordable homeownership opportunities for under-resourced families, according to the announcement.
“(First Story) builds houses for families that otherwise wouldn’t own a home,” Murphy said. “First Story, zero down payment, zero interest loans. The recipient just makes a payment every month of their principal and in 30 years, they own it and we hand them the title.”
First Story built its first house in 2001 and has built 128 so far, Murphy said. Five of those are in Moses Lake, said Vice President of Community Engagement & Giving Deb Flagan, the first one built in 2008.
“In addition, we also give to housing nonprofits (supporting) youth and education and food security (including) the Moses Lake Food Bank,” Flagan said.
Hayden’s business model is producing homes that a median-income wage earner can afford, Flagan said.
“We want to be able to bring these homes to market so the workforce can thrive in these communities and the families can have an affordable place to live,” Flagan said. “And that will continue to be our commitment.”
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Garred Road Fire sees no growth, two other local fires contained
COULEE CITY — Fire crews are still working on containing the Garred Road Fire, near Coulee City, which has seen very little growth, remaining at nearly 3,400 acres and is around 61 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon. According to the Southeast Washington Interagency I
Quincy store holds raffle for hospitalized employee
QUINCY — The raffle to help an ailing employee at Quincy Hardware and Lumber is booming. “When I first was trying to brainstorm what we could do about this (Wednesday) morning, I thought, (maybe) we can raise $1,000 to help with travel expenses and them being out of town so long,” said owner Tina Stetner Thursday. “Well, the first couple of hours that the store was open (Thursday), I think we'd already made $1,250.” Charles Rounds, who has worked at Quincy Hardware for about five years, was struck last week with cauda equina syndrome, a rare but critical condition in which some of the nerves at the base of the spine stop transmitting messages to the lower part of the body, according to the American Association of Neurosurgeons. In Rounds’ case, the nerves had stopped telling his bladder to empty, causing waste to back up and his kidneys to fail. He went to the emergency room at Quincy Valley Medical Center, which sent him on to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in the Tri-Cities, Reiman said.
120-acre fire burns structures by I-90
MOSES LAKE — Nobody was harmed in a wildfire alongside Interstate 90 Wednesday afternoon, according to Grant County Fire District 5. At about 3:45 p.m., Adams County Fire District 2 firefighters were dispatched to a fire, dubbed the Schrag Fire, at a farm residence on Schrag Road at milepost 194 of the eastbound lanes of I-90, GCFD 5 Battalion Chief Travis Svilar said. As of 6:30 p.m., the fire had grown to 120 acres. ACFD 2 called for mutual aid from neighboring departments and for air support, Svilar said. Two scooper planes and two helicopters were on the scene. The fire’s forward progress to the east was stopped by 6 p.m., Svilar said. The freeway remained open the entire time.