About Louhelen
Service-Learning and Co
mmunity Engagement
Founded in 1931, Louhelen serves as an education and conference center for the Great Lakes region, and for students and partner organizations across the nation and around the globe. Louhelen provides spiritual and practical education and community service-learning opportunities for all ages, empowering diverse paths to personal development within a common commitment of service to humanity. Collaborative partnerships with community-based organizations—locally, nationally, and internationally—create diverse opportunities to link learning to action for community improvement.
A Diverse Learning Community
With full-scale education and conference facilities serving groups of up to 250 people at a time, Louhelen learners have the unique advantage of experiencing a small-scale, spiritually and socially vibrant residential learning community, enriched by a culturally and socially diverse student population. Louhelen’s vibrant community-based learning environment encourages active exploration of human interests and issues and consultation on effective paths of service to address them.
Education: The Foundation of Every Human Excellence
Louhelen’s approach to learning and its community service programs expresses the distinctive Bahá'í commitment to education as “the indispensable foundation of every human excellence.” This vision of education embraces learning that is:
Dedicated to the independent investigation of truth and freedom of conscience. . .
Dedicated to active learning and transformative change. . .
Dedicated to empowering individual initiative through the spirit of friendship and collaboration. . .
Dedicated to fostering the spirit and habits of respect for the well-being of all. . .
Dedicated to translating visionary ideals of global citizenship into daily deeds of constructive living. . .
Origins and History
In 1930, soon after he had become a member of the Bahá’í Faith, Mr. L.W. Eggleston purchased a farm near Davison, Michigan with the express intention of using the grounds and facilities for a Bahá’í Summer School. In the same year, he and Miss Helen Whitney were joined in marriage, and together they made plans to start the school the very next summer. The first nine days of August, 1931 marked the first season of Louhelen Bahá’í School. 
In all, 35 Bahá’ís and friends, from six states, attended as full-time participants, and about 50 others, mainly from Detroit and Flint, came as day students to one or more classes. The sessions were held that year in a wooded area sloping down to a clear stream, either in a lodge on the hillside or in an open-air amphitheater nearby.
To ensure that the School would continue season after season, the Egglestons worked diligently to improve the school’s facilities. A small barn was partitioned into private rooms and became the Pullman Lodge. A dining porch was added to the main house to improve the serving of meals. 
For nearly twenty years the Egglestons poured out their energy, effort, and money in improving and maintaining the accommodations. Finally, in 1949 they deeded to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States the school buildings and the land on which they stood. In the late 1970s Louhelen underwent tremendous change, removing older buildings and erecting new ones. In 1983, the National Spiritual Assembly opened the buildings which currently comprise Louhelen. A new auditorium was added in 2001. With your interest and support, Louhelen constantly strives to enhance its service to all, while remaining true to its heritage of beauty, charm, and peaceful atmosphere.
