StreetFest
FRIDAY, AUGUST 29TH I AROUND 1PM- 5PM
Submitting a Worksite Proposal
To propose your organization as a StreetFest 2025 site, please submit a worksite proposal form below. This form will take about 5-10 minutes to complete.
Worksite Proposal
Please submit worksite proposals by end of day Monday, June 30th. The sooner you submit a site proposal, the easier it will be for us to make plans. Proposals are necessary even if your organization has served as a StreetFest partner before. We will review proposals and send out confirmation emails within two weeks of your submission with increased frequency as the deadline approaches. Please note that your proposal worksite will not be a StreetFest site until you receive a confirmation email.
Walking Tours
In the worksite proposal form, you'll find a question about whether your site would like to include a walking tour of the area. One of our goals with StreetFest is to introduce new students to Grand Rapids. We've found that including walking tours led by an organizational partner of the surrounding area is a great way to do so; not only are students able to explore part of the city, but their experience is made deeper through learning its stories, and the work in which they engage becomes fuller as they understand its context and the relationship between the neighborhood and your organization. While this walking tour may reduce the amount of time the group has to work at your site, we strongly encourage you to consider including one -- and it will also help round out the experience if students finish work more quickly than expected, which happens frequently.
Site Visits
It is very important to us that we fully understand the mission behind your organization and the relation you have to the community you are in. Our hope is to be available to describe in more detail what Streetfest looks like and to answer any questions that come up. Even if you have been a Streetfest site before, since we have a new and eager team, we would still love to meet! Here are some ways to connect:
Let us know a time/date that would work for you and we’ll meet you at your site.
We would love to hear from you by email (slc@calvin.edu) or phone (331-266-5192)
Your perspectives are a priority for us. We are excited to learn how our office can collaborate with you!
Calvin University's Mission
Calvin University equips students to think deeply, act justly, and to live wholeheartedly as Christ's agents of renewal in the world.
What is the Service-Learning Center?
The Service-Learning Center seeks to strengthen the relationships between members of Calvin University and the Grand Rapids community. Our mission is to equip Calvin University students, staff, and faculty to learn reflectively, serve lovingly, and engage wholeheartedly with our neighbors in the pursuit of justice, vibrancy, and shalom in Grand Rapids and the world. We seek to do so through facilitating community-based service-learning, social justice activity, and civic participation in Grand Rapids and other partner communities.
Students participate in service-learning through a variety of activities including: StreetFest, service-learning days, Special Olympics, academically-based service-learning, and more. Our office also coordinates transportation services, discounted Rapid bus cards, and blood drives each semester.
What is Service-Learning?
Service-learning aspires to be a dynamic, reciprocal relationship between community members and students. Through service-learning, it is our hope that students will learn both the strengths and the needs of a community. Engagement through the model of service-learning seeks to enable a deeper relationship between students and the communities in which they serve and learn, moving beyond an outsider's hope to serve a community without listening to those within it, as well as moving beyond an education that is separated from action. Service-Learning emphasizes the necessity of both service and learning, prompting our motto: "Learning to Serve, Serving to Learn."
StreetFest
StreetFest is an annual event that takes place during new student orientation, now on its 33rd year! During this day, incoming students, faculty, and staff venture off of Calvin's campus into the surrounding community to both serve and learn with over 50 community organizations and churches in Grand Rapids. As students spend time serving and learning, they learn about the needs of the city through the lens of the organizations with which they are serving, growing familiar with the community they are joining through conversation and action.
It is our hope that StreetFest will introduce students to the city of Grand Rapids, to the concept of service-learning, ignite their passion for service and justice, and motivate them to engage in service-learning opportunities and the local community through their time at Calvin and beyond.