Celebrate Viva Calle with the San José Odd Fellows

Have you heard about Viva Calle? It’s an event put on by the city of San José, a couple of times each year, where they’ll shut down miles of downtown streets to cars and open them up for the enjoyment of cyclists and pedestrians. Around 100,000 residents will travel some or all of the six-mile route between 10am and 3pm on April 23rd, enjoying the outdoors and checking out the various food trucks and entertainment options. If you decide to join them, you’ll see crafting tables, live music, lots of unusual forms of transportation (is that a man on a giant unicycle?), dancers, and best of all, some Odd Fellows!

Because this April, the route goes right by the Grand Lodge building on Race Street, and a couple blocks south of there, on West San Carlos, the True Fellowship Odd Fellows of San José will be running a booth, and helping the event itself run smoothly by working with the San José Police to manage the flow and safety of pedestrian traffic.

This will be our first time taking part in Viva Calle, and it’s a pretty exciting opportunity. Thousands of people, who may know nothing about us, are going to see our booth, see that we’re an active part of their community, and maybe stop to learn more about who we are. It’s also a great opportunity to form a relationship with the City of San José by assisting them with the logistics of this event.

Having been to several of these events in the past, I know how fun they are, and how comfortable I’ve felt talking to groups doing their own outreach. And since the route goes right by our lovely headquarters on Race Street, it seems fitting that we should be one of those groups this year. Would you like to join us?

If so, mark your calendar for April 23rd. Swing by and say hello! We’d love to see you. And we still have space for a few more Odd Fellows and Rebekahs to help with the booth and intersection from 8am to 3pm that day. If you feel like getting involved yourself, fill out our contact form below. It’ll be busy, but we’re going to have a lot of fun!

For the first 12 people who can volunteer the entire time from 8am to 3pm (don’t worry, there will be breaks), they’ll receive a free t-shirt and meal voucher from Viva Calle.

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