Thursday, October 1, 2026
CHELAN — For years, some of the valley’s most dedicated young volleyball players have spent their seasons in motion, traveling out of town for practices, sharing limited gym space, or finding time wherever they could.
What they were building, though, was already taking root here.
Kahiau Volleyball Club, a program drawing athletes from across the Lake Chelan Valley and beyond, has grown into something more than a place to play. It is, as founder Desiree Phelps describes it, a system built not around wins and losses, but around people.
“We aren’t really training volleyball players,” Phelps said. “We’re training strong, capable young women who need to have servant hearts and need to put others before themselves as leaders.”
That philosophy is embedded from the beginning. Kahiau’s structure starts with its youngest athletes, some as young as five, and builds upward through developmental beach programs, training groups and limited indoor club teams.
Beach volleyball, in particular, has allowed the program to reach more athletes. Without the same constraints as indoor gym space, one coach can oversee multiple courts at once, opening the door to broader participation across age groups.
Indoor volleyball, by contrast, remains intentionally small, not by design, but by necessity.
“We only run a 14 and a 12 indoor program,” Phelps said, referring to the maximum ages of the teams they serve. “Because of gym space and available coaches.”
Even within that structure, the program emphasizes daily habits over outcomes. Athletes carry what Phelps calls “power books,” setting physical, mental and emotional goals in them and sharing them in a group setting.
“The kids have to come every day with a quote,” she said. “They have to tell us why they chose that quote, what that quote means… and when you have the same 10 girls sitting around a circle, by month number two, they’re pretty connected.”
The result, she said, is something that extends well beyond the court.
“They think they’re playing volleyball,” Phelps said. “They’re not. They’re learning how to cooperate with a coworker who’s in a difficult spot right now.”
The club’s name reflects that intention. Kahiau, a Hawaiian word rooted in the program’s coaching lineage, means something it would seem hard to express in a single word.
“To give selflessly with no expectation of return,” Phelps said. “That’s what we want them to understand.”
That vision grew out of experience and frustration.
As her daughter pursued high-level club volleyball, Phelps found herself driving hours out of the valley for practices, alongside other local families doing the same. In those gyms, she saw both the opportunities and the shortcomings of the broader club system.
“I saw a lot of people influencing young women, and they were not good [influences],” she said. “And I can do better. We can do better in this valley for our local kids.” After all, the focus should be on growth, and most club programs are primarily concerned with wins.
When her daughter left for college, Phelps decided to try.
What followed has steadily expanded into a regional program, with athletes coming from Chelan and Manson as well as Wenatchee, Cashmere, Entiat, Brewster, Omak, Okanogan and beyond. The beach program now serves a wider base of younger athletes, while indoor teams remain more limited, creating a pathway that keeps many families training locally rather than leaving the valley.
For many, that matters as much as anything else.
For years, Kahiau has relied on borrowed courts and shared facilities, piecing together gym time where it could and often working around school schedules and availability. Phelps is eternally grateful for the support she’s had from Chelan schools and spaces, but the constraints were real.
That’s part of why the LCCC has taken on such significance.
Not as the origin of the program, but as its next step.
With dedicated space, Phelps said, the potential is there to expand indoor offerings, serve more athletes, and bring greater consistency to training.
“If we have the ability to, if we have the coaches, if we have the staffing, for sure [we’ll grow],” she said.
But for Phelps, growth has never been measured only in numbers.
She points instead to the athletes themselves, including those who arrive struggling and learn to work through it.
“There are kids that come in that are hard,” she said. “And it’s not because they’re bad kids, it’s because they’re frustrated.”
Rather than disciplining that frustration, she said, the program works to help athletes understand it and move through it as part of a team.
“You watch them, over time, learn how to be part of something bigger than themselves,” Phelps said.
In one case, she described a player who initially had difficulty connecting with teammates, but gradually grew into a steady, supportive presence on the court.
“Now she’s exactly what we’re trying to build,” Phelps said. “She’s supportive, she’s aware, she’s thinking about others.”
Moments like that, she said, are the real measure of success.
“When Chelan first started winning state titles, people would say, ‘Your program is doing this or that,’” she said. “And I would say, that was never the goal. That’s not the goal.”
Instead, she returns to the same idea that launched the program.
“Let’s focus on the human beings we’re producing,” Phelps said. “The volleyball is the byproduct of the great human being that we’re trying to create.”
With a permanent home on the horizon, that work is poised to continue and to grow without leaving the valley behind.
For the families who have made the drive, shared the space and stayed committed, it is something already built.
Now, finally, it has a place to belong.
Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media
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