Oakdale Neighbors

Living on campus in the dorms provides many opportunities to get involved in the Calvin community as well as the greater Grand Rapids community. In the hopes of connecting Calvin students with meaningful off-campus experiences and enabling students to serve their community, historically each Calvin dorm has been paired with a local organization for students to partner with. Serving one’s community with an attitude of learning and humility is called service-learning.

Senior Accounting major, Collette Brouwer, lived in Noordewier-VanderWerp Hall (NVW) her freshman and sophomore year. NVW’s partner is Oakdale Neighbors, a Christian community development organization. Oakdale Neighbors has many different opportunities to serve in the Oakdale community, two of which Collette participated in during her time in the dorms.

“Service learning changed my views about social justice, in placing the emphasis on humility anytime you’re helping people.”

Collette went to her dorm’s Community Partnerships Coordinator (CPC) to get connected with Oakdale Neighbors. Here Collette was part of an afterschool bike club where kids learned to take care of bikes and be responsible on the road. Collette worked as a camp counselor during the previous summer, so when school started in the fall she missed being around kids. That’s initially what got her interested in her dorm’s Service-Learning opportunity with Oakdale Neighbors. Collette loved being able to be around kids again in a meaningful way while also getting to do something fun like biking, “You never know what impact you’ll have on the kids' lives and I was surprised at the impact they had on my life.” 

As the months got colder, bike club went on pause and transitioned to an afterschool reading/tutoring program at Campus Elementary. Here Collette worked with elementary age kids everyday after school. She got to be with the same kids each day which enabled her to form meaningful relationships. Due to the after school hours, the environment was a relaxed one that allowed for Collette to have fun with the kids while also helping them with their school work.

“Service learning changed my views about social justice, in placing the emphasis on humility anytime you’re helping people.”

Service-learning is a great way to learn about your surroundings and to see your city in a new light. Collette mentioned how Service-Learning helped her understand the social issues affecting Grand Rapids in a way traditional learning wasn’t able to. Part of a liberal arts education is the ability to study all areas of interest. Service-Learning is a great opportunity to do something outside your major and learn in a different format than typical classroom learning. Collette remarked on how her time at Oakdale Neighbors changed how she viewed her major, “I’m an accounting major and I was so surprised how it changed the way I see accounting. Now I would love to be an accountant for a nonprofit one day.” 

College can be busy and overwhelming, but taking time out of each week to be of service to the people around you can be rejuvenating and can help provide a new perspective. Collette ended up filling the CPC role in her dorm the spring of her freshman year where she continued to serve at Oakdale neighbors as well as help connect other students in her dorm to service opportunities.

“I learned a lot about the city of Grand Rapids through Service-Learning, being connected to an organization, leaving campus, and entering the surrounding community. Calvin can be a bubble, college can even be a bubble, so it felt really healthy to leave campus to go hang out at an elementary school in the afternoons.”

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Oakdale Neighbors has faithfully been serving the community since 1996. This organization embodies the same philosophies towards service as Calvin’s Service-Learning Center. Oakdale Neighbors is an asset based community development organization that seeks to empower its residents through “discovering, developing, and connecting neighbors’ skills, and resources.” There are several different programs for local youth to get involved in including:

• Lamp Post Safety & Financial Literacy Program

• Learning Cafe’ (Youth Mentoring & Tutoring Program)

• Boston Square Community Bikes

• Comprenew Connect Computer Training

• Chess Club

• Treasure Hunt

• Robotics

I spoke with Oakdale Neighbor’s youth director, Bruce Bouman, about his experiences here. Bruce has worked at Oakdale Neighbors for the majority of its existence, since 2004. Before that Bruce was a Calvin social work grad who participated in service-learning and lived in the Project Neighborhood Koinonia House. From early on Bruce has seen the value in mentorship and the impact service can have on a community.

Being an asset based community development organization means seeking to build assets in kids. Oakdale Neighbors does this through tutoring, youth mentorship and support, and goal management. The kids at Oakdale Neighbors all have what’s called a “Five Finger Contract”: encouragement, responsibility, respect, commitment, and safety. Oakdale Neighbors aims to cultivate these assets in the youth they mentor, so that they can take these skills with them later in life to things like jobs and relationships. 

Each of the different programs Oakdale Neighbors offers are focused on developing skills that kids can apply to their schoolwork and future jobs. This past summer they held a business camp where 10 kids started their own small businesses. They learned financing, entrepreneurship, and business skills. Similarly, while teaching kids to play chess, they learn skills like strategizing, decision making, and planning. Many of the kids that have participated in Chess Club in the past have said it helped them become interested and succeed in STEM. Oakdale's after school Learning Cafe has a student led Robotics Program that also helps kids build valuable technical skills. 

Oakdale Neighbors aims to keep their group sizes around 50 kids. By keeping the groups smaller they can really invest in the kids and build deep, meaningful relationships. Bruce and his colleagues have noticed how many of the kids they mentor end up doing youth ministry themselves later in life. The impact adult mentors can have on young kids is huge, and at Oakdale Neighbors they take this responsibility seriously and humbly.

When Oakdale Neighbors finds a good volunteer they want to hold on to them. Coming into a community for an hour or two a week to “help” then driving back home to another neighborhood where you live is not the ideal type of service. It’s best when volunteers and staff members really want to invest in the community. This means spending time there, going to church there, living and working there. Oftentimes relocating to a neighborhood makes the biggest impact. This isn’t to discourage outsiders who want to get involved, but to encourage them to push themselves to really get involved. The more time spent in the area and the more parts of your own life become connected to the neighborhood, and the better understanding you have of the space, the better impact you will be able to have.

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Colette is a great example of an involved volunteer and speaks to how participating in local community work can impact not only the community but your own vocation as well. Calvin’s Service-Learning Center aims to make these types of connections easy for Calvin students and faculty, to encourage students to use their gifts outside of campus and to discover how their vocation fits into the larger community. 

https://oakdaleneighbors.org/oakdale-neighbors-documents/