FFSFBA Home Welcome

Friendship Force International, a 1992 Nobel Peace Prize nominee founded in 1977, is an international nonprofit, volunteer organization. There are more than 300 clubs active in more than 50 countries on six continents. In the United States, 105 clubs are spread over 38 states. The Friendship Force’s premise is that each person can make a contribution to global goodwill through personal connections and cross-cultural understanding.

At the heart of the Friendship Force organization are club exchanges. During a club exchange, club members, or "ambassadors," visit a club in a different country, usually staying in homes, and develop friendships and understanding of the other culture through the experience. Friendship Force International also sponsors such programs as international festivals, international teacher exchanges, and "domestic" exchanges between U.S. clubs within the United States.

For more about Friendship Force International, visit www.thefriendshipforce.org.

What Friendship Force is NOT
Friendship Force is not a travel agency; nor is it a sightseeing travel club. Although there will be sightseeing on an exchange, the emphasis is on visiting other people and learning to appreciate another culture through living with them for a brief time.

Our outbound ambassador group to Mont St Michel,
on our way to a Home Stay in Biarritz, France.
Photo courtesy of Andrew Rader

COMING UP:

Note: Friendship Force International is NOT affiliated with Friendship Force dating service.

ABOUT OUR CLUB

Our club, Friendship Force of the San Francisco Bay Area (FFSFBA), founded in 1984, presently has about 90 members. Our members live from Novato in the North Bay to Los Gatos in the South Bay and from Oakland to Livermore in the East Bay. Because our membership is scattered over a large area, members get together in smaller geographical area groups for small group social activities in addition to whole-club activities.

Anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area who shares the principles of Friendship Force is welcome to become a member of our club, and any member may apply to be an ambassador. In addition, any member of a U.S. Friendship Force club may apply to be an ambassador with any other U.S. club if space is available. Our club typically has one or two international inbound exchanges and one or two outbound international exchanges each year. We also have “domestic” exchanges with other clubs within the United States.

We hold four regular meetings: a club birthday party, a picnic, a fall meeting, and a holiday luncheon. We also schedule social events and planning meetings during the year. These meetings provide the opportunity to learn about the inbound and outbound exchanges and to select activities in which we want to participate.

See the Photo Gallery for a sampling of our exchanges and activities.

Typical Roles and Activities for Exchanges

Ambassadors for an Outbound Exchange travel to and from the host city where up to seven nights of home hosting and special activities are provided by the local club. There are usually options for additional home hosting in a different city within the same country, home hosting in a nearby country, or additional travel as a group or as an individual. Ambassadors are expected to be flexible, open to experiences with a different culture, and to reflect well on themselves and their country. For examples of ambassadors' experiences on an outbound exchange, read the ambassadors' journal for the Canada or the Philippines exchange.

Home Hosts for an Inbound Exchange provide lodging in their homes for inbound ambassadors. The facilities offered by a home host are matched to the needs of the ambassador group, and typically are for one to three persons. Host families include their ambassadors in the activites of their daily lives as well as activities designed to introduce the ambassadors to life in our Bay Area.

Day Hosts for an Inbound Exchange provide a variety of activities for the ambassadors in cooperation with the home hosts. Day hosts escort the ambassadors for a day taking them to places or events of interest around the area such as to see redwood trees, universities, or visit San Francisco sites.

Dinner Hosts for an Inbound Exchange usually organize and host potlucks in their homes for several ambassadors and FFSFBA members to meet one another. This allows more members to be personally involved, and relieves the home host.

Cultural Orientations and Informational Meetings are provided for outbound ambassadors or inbound hosts before each exchange. For example, club members visited the Japanese Consulate before a recent inbound exchange from Osaka, Japan. A speaker from the consulate gave information about how to interract with the ambassadors and taught a few phrases in the Japanese language.

Ambassador Welcome Receptions, Tree Plantings, and Farewell Parties are opportunities for the entire membership to meet all the visiting ambassadors and entertain them with our local culture. They usually entertain us as well. For international inbound exchanges, we plant a tree typically found in the ambassadors’ country in our Friendship Forest, which is in Prusch Park in San Jose.

Outbound FFSFBA Ambassador Kathy Graham makes new friends in Brazil. Photo courtesy of Mary Ann Simpson

Dick Whitmore and ambassador Gerry Coté plant a maple tree in honor of the visit from Montreal. Photo courtesy of Dick Whitmore

Examples of Other Club Activities

World Friendship Day Celebration is held on March 1 or thereabouts, by Friendship Force clubs around the world as a celebration of friendship. It is an opportunity for anyone in the community to attend a fun celebration, usually a potluck with international dishes. Club members share their memories, photos, and memorabilia of the exchanges in which they have participated.

Area Group Activities are get-togethers of smaller groups of members. These smaller groups make it easy for our geographically scattered membership to keep in touch. These area groups visit places that are interesting to the group or to places they think may be interesting to future inbound ambassadors.

Watercolorist Gabrielle Moore-Gordon, originally from Zimbabwe, explains her work at an area group outing from aboard her Marin houseboat. Photo courtesy of Roger Riffenburgh

FFSFBA Costs

Club annual dues are $40 per person, or $60 per couple or family. Members receive frequent club newsletters, which provide details of our local activities. Costs for outbound exchanges are kept to a minimum; the major expense is for travel to and from the host club.

Where We Live

FFSFBA club members live in many different cities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and immediate surroundings. For a map of the San Francisco Bay Area, see Mapquest (click on the printer-friendly view) or see a more comprehensive map of the greater Bay region on the California State Tourism website (556 KB PDF).

From north to south, FFSFBA members live in the following cities.

North Bay (on
the west side)

Peninsula (west
side of the Bay)

South Bay and
south

East Bay and
east

    Novato
    San Rafael
    Mill Valley

San Francisco
Pacifica
Burlingame
Hillsborough
San Mateo
Foster City
San Carlos
Redwood City
Atherton
Palo Alto
Portola Valley
Mountain View
Los Altos

Sunnyvale
Cupertino
Santa Clara
San Jose
Campbell
Los Gatos
San Martin

Kensington
Walnut Creek
San Ramon
Dublin
Castro Valley
Hayward
Livermore
Pleasanton
Sunol
Fremont