Southwest Michigan

Gather & Grow

Collective

Building a thriving community where progressive, secular homeschooling families gather, grow, and belong. We proudly welcome and celebrate LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC families. We get together right now in these areas: Mattawan, Paw Paw, St. Joseph

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Please note: we use stock photos on this website. Out of respect for our families and their privacy we won't be putting pictures of our children here. however, these photos are representative of our current families and/or what we are trying to create.

What Makes Us Different

There are plenty of homeschool activities.

We're building something deeper.

Gather & Grow brings progressive, secular homeschooling families together through immersive experiences inspired by literature, nature, creativity, and community.

Unlike a traditional co-op, parents attend our gatherings with their kids. We hope that everyone can form meaningful relationships through this community.

Children don't just learn together.

They grow up together.

Because the friendships built around campfires, theater immersions, shared meals, museum days, and backyard adventures become the memories that last a lifetime.

Rooted in Story

Beloved books become lived experiences—farms, feasts, theater, and forests.

Season After Season

Real belonging grows through showing up, year after year, together.

Progressive & Secular

A welcoming, inclusive village for families who've been searching for one.

Parents Belong Too

Children build memories while parents build lasting friendships.

Real belonging grows through showing up—season after season, year after year.

Gatherings Ahead

Stories meant to be lived

Every Gather & Grow experience is thoughtfully designed to bring families together through literature, creativity, nature, and meaningful community.

Our gatherings follow the rhythm of the seasons, each inspired by a beloved story, a remarkable place, or a spark of curiosity. As families explore, create, and celebrate together, children build lasting memories—and parents build lasting friendships.

Spring / Summer

Charlotte's Web: Farm & Field

Step into the pages of Charlotte's Web as we visit a local dairy farm and family vineyard before gathering to make homemade butter, biscuits, grape jelly, and fresh juice. Along the way, children discover where food comes from while celebrating friendship, agriculture, and the beauty of community.

Autumn

School of Magic

Each autumn, an ordinary backyard transforms into a world of wonder. Children mix potions, see magic before their eyes, learn theater and improvisation from a local teaching artist, and end the evening gathered around the fire for storytelling and a Great Hall-inspired feast.

Winter

The Village Garland

As autumn turns to winter, families gather for one of our most cherished traditions. Over warm drinks and homemade treats, we create handcrafted keepsake garlands while reflecting on the year's adventures and writing notes of gratitude and encouragement to one another. Every family leaves with a beautiful reminder that we all belong to each other's story.

And So Much More…

Throughout the year, we explore museums, forests, nature centers, theaters, maple syrup farms, fiber mills, gardens, and festivals. We build fairy houses, invent impossible machines, perform plays, create art, share meals, and discover the beauty of Southwest Michigan together.

Every gathering is intentionally designed to nurture curiosity, creativity, confidence, and connection—creating the kind of childhood memories, family traditions, and lifelong friendships that last well beyond the season.

An Invitation

Become a Founding Family

We're currently a founding community of three homeschooling families intentionally building the village we've been searching for. We bring together children ages 4–15, and we believe there’s something incredibly valuable about growing up in a village that isn’t divided by age.

Younger and older children play, create, help, and learn alongside one another, while their caregivers form the kind of meaningful friendships that make this a community for the whole family.

As we thoughtfully grow, we're looking for families who want to do more than attend occasional events. We hope to build a close-knit community where children grow up together, friendships deepen over time, and families become part of one another's lives.

We believe the strongest communities are built by showing up for one another month after month and year after year. While life happens, we're looking for families who genuinely hope to make Gather & Grow a regular part of their homeschooling journey.

At this time, we're especially welcoming

Girls ages 3–8

Boys ages 8–16

If your children fall outside these age ranges, we'd still love to hear from you.

Become a Founding Family →

A Living Community

A Community That Grows With You

No two Gather & Grow seasons will ever look exactly the same. As our community grows, our members help shape the experiences we create together—sharing ideas, talents, traditions, and passions that become part of the story we build as a community.

Some years that may mean adding new literature themes, launching teen programming, creating maker workshops, planning family retreats, organizing service projects, or exploring entirely new adventures inspired by our members.

Gather & Grow isn't simply a calendar of events. It's a living community that evolves alongside the families who call it home.

Many of our gatherings take place in members' homes or community spaces throughout Southwest Michigan. To respect the privacy of our hosts, detailed event locations are shared with participating families after registration.

We're not creating events for families. We're creating the kind of childhood we hope our own children will remember someday.

The Founding Mothers

Meet the families behind the village

Meet Hannah

I am in my early 40’s and have always believed the strongest communities—and the strongest brands—are built through meaningful connection.

Before becoming a mother, I enjoyed traveling the world and founded and led a successful digital marketing agency. I developed campaigns for international music stars, clean beauty start-ups, boutique wineries and more. Today I provide paid media strategy and fractional marketing leadership for a select group of clients. All those years of hustle (and some tears) really has paid off in the most beautiful way. My current work is nothing short of a dream.

My approach to homeschooling is rooted in curiosity, connection, and the belief that childhood should leave plenty of room for wonder. We learn through beautiful books, time in nature, hands-on exploration, meaningful experiences, and following the interests that naturally capture Harper's imagination. Also, lots of whimsy (huge fan of whimsy over here).

I’m less interested in recreating school at home and more interested in creating a childhood rich with stories, creativity, adventure, and opportunities to discover how fascinating the world can be.

My hope is that every family who joins discovers more than wonderful experiences. I hope they find lifelong friendships, meaningful traditions, and a community that becomes part of their family's story.

Outside Gather & Grow, you'll usually find me practicing Pilates, reading, enjoying our gorgeous backyard that I'm so grateful for or exploring Southwest Michigan with my 4 year old daughter. I also have never met an Italian wine I didn’t like. Salute!

Meet Kaity

Our family moved to SW Michigan on a whim two years ago and we have fallen in love with the area. Now we’re just looking for our village to do everyday life with!

Before settling in Michigan, we spent four years full time RV traveling around the country. We loved the accessibility to museums, state and national parks, and all the hands on, real life learning that organically happens with travel. While we’ve put down roots in Paw Paw, Michigan, we are still gypsies at heart and travel and explore as much as possible.

Our homeschool style is a mix of unit studies, unschooling, and Charlotte Mason all thrown together in a chaotic mess. With five kiddos ranging from 8-15, our counters are piled with library books, half finished art projects, lego creations, computer parts, nature journals, and baseball gear. Our kitchen is always in use, dishwasher always running, and I hear “Mom, can I make a treat?” at least twice a day.

My background and heart have always been in education. I earned my degree and teaching certificate in Agricultural Education from Colorado State University and taught high school agriculture before starting a family. I am still wildly passionate about agriculture and love teaching the next generation where their food comes from and how important and vast the agriculture industry is.

While homeschooling and transporting kids to their activities takes up the majority of my time, I try to foster my “granny hobbies” as much as I can. You can find me in my garden in the summer, canning in the kitchen in the fall, crocheting or embroidering by the fire in the winter, and planning a garden far beyond my scope of working ability in the spring.

I look forward to meeting new families that just want to do normal life together- with messy houses, imperfect homeschool plans, wild & crazy ideas, and a love for all people ❤️

Meet Haleigh

I'm a mid-30's mom of three who thrives off of recreating a 90's life. I truly enjoy deep conversations, no- expectation friendships and people living out their most authentic selves and desires.

I grew up in Paw Paw, graduated from school here and then moved down south for college. I graduated with my Bachelors of Science in Psychology, with every intention of going on to get my Masters in Counseling. As life usually does, it threw us some hard curve balls and we ended up making the move to North Carolina. We had our first baby girl and we knew shortly into it that we wanted to homeschool. We birthed our second baby girl in North Carolina and quickly realized that we needed and yearned for a village around us.

After 10 years of being away, we moved back to Michigan. Here, we had our surprise baby boy and have fallen into a village of friends and family that we are so thankful for.

Our homeschool style is very eclectic and we have also enjoyed the Gull Lake Virtual Partnership for extra electives in the community for the last 2 years. One of the biggest reasons why we homeschool is that we truly enjoy the time with our kids and we don't want to take any of that time for granted. Watching them grow and learn every day is such a privilege and I am so thankful to be given the opportunity to do so.

Being a biracial family has brought up a lot of important conversations for us, in trying to find where we fit and feeling safe in those spaces. Having a community of like- minded people, that is diverse and inclusive, is something that we value very much. Our hope is that we can meet and make deep, meaningful relationships with some amazing humans that we can do life with.

In my free time, you'll find me in the chicken coop, out in the garden, harvesting herbs and vegetables, reading a good fantasy book, or working on 1 of my "too many to count" crafting projects. My family truly enjoys just being together with the people we love and care about. Whether it's movie nights with homemade pizzas, crafts at the dining room table, sports in the backyard, or Beyblade and Pokemon tournaments, being together is our greatest joy.

Our hope is that we find more families to share this life with. We look forward to meeting you!

Imagine your child growing up surrounded by stories, campfires, theater, gardens, laughter, and friends who feel like family.