A Place to Create, Connect & Play
Young people are growing up in a world that can leave them feeling more isolated, overwhelmed, and disconnected than ever. So much of their time is spent behind screens, while opportunities to make things with their hands, connect face-to-face, work through real emotions, and feel part of a community are becoming harder to find.
Gateway Mentoring creates a place for young people to come back into connection.
Through music, kids get to use their bodies, their voices, their imagination, and their emotions. They learn rhythm, melody, ear-training, drumming, songwriting, recording, and performing while also learning how to listen to others, communicate, navigate group dynamics, support a bandmate, and take their own place in the room.
We work with the whole young person. We make room for joy, frustration, sadness, uncertainty, excitement, and everything else that comes with growing up. We give kids opportunities to put down the screen, step out of isolation, be understood, and experience the simple feeling of making something together.
Music gives us a language for connection. We’re here to help young people find it.
Our Programs
Songwriting Collective
Step away from the noise. Come back with a song.
The Songwriting Collective is a monthly gathering for kids and adults who want to explore songwriting in nature, surrounded by a small community of people who are also making music.
Once a month, we spend 12 screen-free hours together at the Land of Song & Freedom in the Colestin Valley. We eat together, make music, spend time outside, gather around the fire, and create space for songs to take shape.
A big part of the day is our Songspot. Each person spends an hour alone somewhere in nature, away from the group and away from screens. You might bring an instrument, write some words, sing, walk, sit quietly, or simply see what happens. The intention is to listen and give your creativity room to speak.
After the Songspot, participants have one-on-one time with a music mentor. We work with whatever came through during that hour and help develop it into a song. By the end of the retreat, each person has a demo recording and a first version of their song sheet to take home.
Throughout the day, we also share in circles, drum and sing together, connect with the land, and spend time around the fire. Meals and snacks are provided.
For young people especially, songwriting can become a meaningful way to explore feelings and experiences that can sometimes be difficult to put into ordinary words. They get to practice listening, expressing themselves, collaborating, and trusting their own creative instincts. Adults are invited into that same process alongside them.
Each monthly gathering stands on its own, so participants can join whenever it works for them. Participants also have access to the online Gateway Songwriting Community, where they can continue writing, sharing, and connecting between gatherings.
At the heart of the Songwriting Collective is the Songspot: an hour to slow down, get quiet, and see what wants to come through.
Sometimes a song comes.
Sometimes a feeling.
Sometimes a new idea.
We make room for all of it.
For dates, pricing, and additional program details, download our 2026-27 Programming Booklet.
Gateway Music Collective - Performing Program
Find your place in the music.
The Gateway Music Collective is a performing group for young musicians who are ready to take the next step in their musical journey.
Building on the Songspot experience, participants come together every other Wednesday at Sunny Joy Farms, the home of Gateway Mentoring, to rehearse, make music, and learn what it means to perform as part of a group.
Along the way, they receive mentorship in singing, rhythm, playing together, and the many things that make a band work. They learn how to listen to what is happening around them, when to support another musician, when to step forward, and how to make space for someone else to shine.
We also pay attention to the human side of performing. Participants learn how to communicate with their bandmates, work through challenges, build trust, and contribute to a group where everyone has a meaningful role.
And then we take the music out into the world.
The Gateway Music Collective performs at a minimum of four community events each year, giving participants the chance to experience what it feels like to prepare for a real performance, walk onto a stage together, and share something they have created with an audience.
There is something powerful about watching a young person discover that they can make something meaningful with other people—and that their contribution matters.
For schedules, pricing, and additional program details, download our 2026-27 Programming Booklet.
A Year of Highlights
What's in store for this year?
This year, we’re going deeper.
We’re expanding our time in the studio, giving participants more opportunities to record their music and experience what it means to take an idea from its first spark all the way into a finished recording.
We’ll also be working with the seasons as a source of inspiration. Each season brings its own qualities, rhythms, colors, and feelings, and we’ll use those changes in the natural world as starting points for new music.
We want to make room for the whole emotional experience, too.
There is plenty of joy in making music, and we’ll keep celebrating that. But music also gives us a place to explore the harder things—sadness, frustration, uncertainty, longing, anger, and everything else that comes with being human. We’ll encourage young musicians to find honest ways to express those feelings through sound, rhythm, melody, and song.
We’ll also be going deeper into drumming and singing, building stronger rhythmic foundations and helping each participant become more comfortable using their own voice.
More recording. More rhythm. More singing. More original songs.
And more space for young people to discover what they have to say—and how they want to say it.
Here's How You Can Support Us
Every young person should have the chance to make music, find their voice, and experience what it feels like to belong in a creative community.
There are many ways to help make that possible. You can help a young person afford a program, help us train the mentors who work with them, or help us build the resources and spaces we need to reach more kids.
Scholarship Fund
For some families, the cost of participating can be a barrier. Your donation can make it possible for a young person to join a music program, even when their family cannot afford the full cost.
Your support can help put an instrument in a young person’s hands, give them a place to write and record their own music, or make it possible for them to join a group of young musicians and perform alongside their peers.
A gift of $3,600 can provide a full year of music programming for one young person. Gifts of any size help us offer scholarships to more families who need financial support.
Your donation can directly open the door for a young person who needs this kind of community.
Donate to Training, Infrastructure & New Programming
As Gateway grows, we need the people, tools, and spaces to grow with it.
Your donation can help us train more mentors, develop new music programs, purchase instruments and recording equipment, provide transportation, and build the infrastructure that allows us to serve more young people.
We’re working toward a permanent Gateway headquarters and the resources to make music a regular part of more young people’s lives. A van, instruments, studio equipment, mentor training, and new programs may seem like separate pieces, but each one helps us create more opportunities for kids to connect, create, and grow.
You can help us build the capacity to reach more young people.
To see the step-by-step instructions to make a tax-deductible donation to the Gateway Mentoring Fund through Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, click here
Join the Gateway Mentoring Online Community
Supporting Gateway Mentoring isn’t only about making a donation. It’s also about staying connected to the people, music, mentors, and community that make this work possible.
For $10 a month, you can join our online community and stay close to everything happening at Gateway. Members receive updates about upcoming events, program highlights, youth spotlights, new songs, performances, creative projects, and more.
Your membership helps sustain Gateway while giving you an ongoing window into the community you’re helping build. It’s a simple way to stay involved, celebrate young people’s creativity, and be part of their journey throughout the year.
Join the Gateway Mentoring online community
Whether you choose to support a scholarship, invest in the growth of Gateway Mentoring, or become a member of our online community, your contribution helps us create more places where young people can make music and belong.