Volunteer With CulturFest

Why Volunteer?

CulturFest has always been a community-built celebration. Volunteers help share the food, dance, art, and sport that make each heritage come alive. Lending a few hours is a way to support cultural exchange, meet neighbors, and keep the festival welcoming for everyone.

The organization behind CulturFest — the Cultural Diversity Network, based in Owatonna — carries this mission forward through ongoing events and gatherings.

CulturFest grows out of a simple idea: that heritage is something worth sharing, not just remembering. Every year, the festival gathers food, dance, art, and sport from many backgrounds and lets them meet on common ground. Visitors wander between demonstrations and performances, tasting dishes, watching traditions unfold, and learning how each heritage carries its own rhythm and meaning. The result feels less like an event and more like a neighborhood welcome mat, rolled out for anyone curious about the people who live nearby.

Behind the scenes, the Cultural Diversity Network keeps that welcoming spirit alive long after the final performance. As a parent organization, it supports ongoing gatherings and conversations that help communities stay connected through the quieter months. Volunteers, ambassadors, artists, and sponsors each play a part in carrying the mission forward, whether they are greeting guests at the entrance, guiding children through a craft, or helping a demonstrator set up. The festival’s energy depends on this shared effort, and the network works to make sure it never feels like work at all.

Lending a few hours to CulturFest is a small commitment with a wide reach. Volunteers help artists and demonstrators settle in, assist with the children’s passport program, support photo galleries and stage performances, and make sure every visitor feels oriented from the moment they arrive. In return, volunteers often describe the experience as a way to meet neighbors, learn something unexpected, and take part in a tradition that celebrates what makes each background unique while finding the threads that tie them together.

Ways to Help

• Greeting visitors and helping guests find their way around
• Assisting artists and demonstrators with setup and materials
• Helping with the Children’s Passport Program activities
• Supporting food vendors and the sports area
• Sharing photography, storytelling, or social media skills
• Helping with setup before and cleanup after events

Get Involved

Planning meetings for the Cultural Diversity Network are typically held on the first Thursday of the month at 4:00 p.m. Meeting locations vary, so please reach out ahead of time.

If you’d like to support the mission in other ways — through sponsorship or donations — visit the Support CulturFest page.