Our GoFundMe Goal: $1600

 We are live on GoFundMe! 

As a volunteer-based organization with no paid employees, our board members give of their time, talents, and treasure freely. But we could use some help fundraising for the start-up costs of our community education and enrichment organization, including the application fee for getting 501(c)(3) status. Did you know it costs $400 just to apply? 

Why do we need 501(c)(3) status?

We are all from small towns, and we absolutely love it! There's rich history here, and neighborliness, and self-sufficiency that's admirable. There are also some things we do without. Toquerville, for instance, doesn't even have a gas station, let alone a community center. 

This means we have the opportunity to help BUILD our community in ways that respect its roots and its future as a bedroom community. While city planning officials focus more on recreation and sports, there is room in our community for a building and facilities that focus more on the arts, education in the classics, and the rural industry of livestock, gardening, and root-cellaring that carved these towns into an oasis in the desert. 

We could fill this niche in our community. We have a vision of a beautiful building with an acre or two of land for raising livestock, an orchard, and several gardens, all maintained by volunteers from families in our community. That's an educational experience we'd all love for our children, whether or not we raise animals and vegetables ourselves. And while the proposed new community center the city plans is scanty on the classroom space and big on pickle-ball courts, our dream building would be a space where Hometown Heroes events, like the one we enjoyed last Saturday, take place on a regular basis! It would be a place dedicated not merely to recreation, which we all enjoy in our own backyards already, but to the learning, growth, and unity of the whole community. 

It's a BIG dream! And we'll need to be able to apply for grants from charitable foundations in order to achieve it. 

501(c)(3) status also enables donors to receive the charitable tax deduction for any money they contribute to our vision, so you can feel comfortable in the future giving more to the cause. 

LEMI Training

Our mentors for the family school want to be able to provide a couple of the amazing Scholar Projects created by the Leadership Education Mentoring Institute. 

The two trainings Katrina Lantz and Shayna Gorton will be attending this summer are Key of Liberty and The Georgics Project, respectively. This will certify them to mentor groups of youth or adults who are interested in ...

Key of Liberty

• reading biographies of the founders of the American Revolution
• studying and understanding the principles of the Constitution
• memorizing the Declaration of Independence

The Georgics Project

• learning to Garden
• learning about Principles of Providence, Self Validation, Mission, Real-Estate Ownership, Community Stewardship, Entrepreneurship and more...

The Garden

Last but not least, our community/school garden needs some serious love!




We have a beautiful plan for this space, with planting ideas from some of our own Zion Gateway Commonwealth children. We need money for lumber to build the boxes, soil, and seedlings. 


Let's do this! With your help, we can!

Introducing the Hometown Heroes Project

When we started the Hometown Heroes Project as an idea of bringing community closer together and sharing local knowledge, I was excited for all the connections it could build, particularly between the older and younger generations, but I wasn't expecting to feel so enriched myself. We held our first Hometown Heroes event on Saturday, May 14, 2016 in my mom's living room. There was barely room for all the people who came to hear about Marba Hale's marvelous life and talents.

I had a blast and learned so much this morning as 87-year-old Marba Hale spoke, and shared her passions for opera and sewing. The beautiful music filled my heart, and the fun opera clips she played made me laugh with their ridiculous plot lines and elaborate costumes. I couldn't believe the talent that went into each doll costume and stuffed animal she had made, and I was pleased to find out how we could help her with the Charlie Project, to bring toys to the under-served children her son works with as an ecclesiastical leader. (FYI, I'm happy to act as a go-between if you want to donate Barbie dolls, doll clothes, porcelain dolls, and well-preserved stuffed animals to the project. Her goal is 100 by Christmas. Use the Contact Us page on our website.)

Thanks to Marba and her family for presenting! And thanks to all who came! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the event.

Our First Donations! THANK YOU!

Zion Gateway Commonwealth, a new non-profit based out of Toquerville for education and community enrichment, is all set up to receive donations. Check out our shiny new Donate button on the website!

Yesterday a very patient bank employee helped us to set up an account for our new commonwealth school with the donations we have received and raised so far. 

One very special moment in this process was depositing all $43.39 of the cash our earliest (and some of our youngest) donors had worked to donate! 

These are my sons (see picture). They are very excited about our new family school, where everyone from baby to Mom and Dad (and Grandma and Grandpa, too) are welcome to come play, learn, and teach what they know and love. Not a "school" in the common sense but a non-profit commonwealth of families pooling their time, talents, and treasure for the good and growth of all. It is a truly enriching experience when we come together once a week in the spirit of community!

Earlier this year, my sons and I pulled weeds for a neighbor and received our first cash donation in support of this endeavor to build the Zion Gateway community through a new commonwealth school. Inspired, my sons came home and pulled all of our weeds for cash from Dad--money which they generously donated to our school building fund, previously residing in this glass jar (see picture).

I'm happy to announce that as our donations have grown, so has our "donation jar" and you can now donate via PayPal on our website: www.ziongatewaycommunity.org

We are currently raising funds for mentor training (through LEMI, the Leadership Education Mentoring Institute) and for wood, soil, and seeds for our community/school garden.

We have already received some very generous gifts outside the money my productive young warriors have raised pulling weeds, and want to thank everyone who has donated, whether by name or anonymously! 

Thank you, Pam Yeager, for our first donation! 

And thank you to Bill Lantz, Sam, Layne, and Ben for your sweat and treasure.

Who We Are: Mission

MISSION: We the people of Zion Gateway Commonwealth School are a gathering of inspired families raising a righteous generation of leaders. We support each other in our personal growth, founded upon the teachings of the scriptures.  We are a family school following the philosophy found in A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille. To honor our rural towns and rich pioneer history, we also focus on Georgics and principles of liberty, self-sufficiency, and cooperative work via a community garden, local service opportunities, and the Hometown Heroes Project. We create connections between families and individuals in our local community, to strengthen the whole by elevating its parts, and to create a Zion society among us in preparation for Christ's return.

Everybody has a mission. Part of ours as the founders of Zion Gateway Commonwealth School and Community programs is to create opportunities within the local community for children to grow acquainted with the rich history of their towns, the incredible knowledge and skills held by their elders, and the ways in which they can impact the future of their communities for the better.

Zion Gateway Commonwealth is now enrolling families for Fall.

What is a new commonwealth school? When families first pull their children from big institutions to homeschool, they often feel lost, overwhelmed, and alone. New commonwealth schools are non-profit cooperative, volunteer-based groups that provide a soft landing for these families.

As confidence grows for parent and child, the commonwealth school becomes a bonus, a supplement to the rich learning environment pervading the home. New commonwealth schools keep the focus where it belongs, on families. Everything we do together is meant to elevate individual members of the family so we can all become better mentors and students with lifelong learning as a daily staple.

Everybody has a mission. Practicing the 7 Keys of Great Teaching (see sidebar) allows us not only to help our children to discover theirs, but also encourages us to get the education we missed out on in our youth and to discover anew a sense of vision and mission for ourselves. This focus on mission creates an excitement and personal drive that keeps learning at the forefront of our daily tasks, and catapults our families to greater heights!