WELCOME

Friendship Force of the San Francisco Bay Area (FFSFBA) is an organization that participates in one week home stay journeys (once called exchanges) both at home and abroad. Our purpose is to experience countries and cultures different from ours, to promote understanding between each other, and to cultivate friendships. We are a member club of Friendship Force International.

Here are a few pictures from our recent visit to the 9th District Courthouse and Salesforce Gardens. 

This year's regular meetings and events with their dates are shown below. Please register your planned attendance when they appear to the left as UPCOMING EVENTS. Look for the emails to announce that registration is open. 

1. World Friendship Day occurred in March. We celebrated World Friendship Day at our LEO in March. 

2. May is our birthday. This year we celebrate our 42nd birthday at Shirley's House at 744 Yale Lane, Santa Clara 95051 from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM with a Birthday Potluck Cake and Ice Cream. Please bring a dish to share and drinks of your desire. Cake, ice cream, soda and water will be provided. After lunch we will  hold a board meeting extended to all members who attend. Our topics of interest will be upcoming Journeys for 2026 and 2027 and local events as well as other club business items. Please register under UPCOMING EVENTS. 

3. Our Annual Summer Picnic and BBQ on will be held on Saturday July 11th, 2026. This year we meet around the pool at Kate Wheatley's house on South San Jose from 1:00 PM to about 5:00 PM for BBQ, conversation and swimming. Bunny and Dave will be planning the food and tables and hopefully Stuart and Dave wiil volunteer to grill again! Please register under UPCOMING EVENTS. 

4. We hold our Annual Meeting with Journeys in Photos on Saturday September 5th, 2026 at the Santa Clara Library again. We will do some club business and elect officers for 2027.  The primary purpose though is to recap past journeys, plan for 2027 and express our wishes for 2028. Note that we will vote on our journey preferences at this meeting rather than at the luncheon. Guests and visitors are welcome! This is the time to learn what our club is about. 

5. Just before Christmas we meet for our Annual Holiday Luncheon on Thursday December 10th, 2026 at Michaels at Shoreline in Mountain View. We install officers , eat and most likely will be  entertained by the Mountain View Madrigal Singers. 

Journeys in planning for 2026-27

1. Planning is nearly complete for our international outbound for 2026, one week in Fortaleza, Brasil, from June 15th to June 21st with side trips both before and after. Eric Miller and Susan Borders are our JC's. Fortaleza is in northeast Brazil on the Atlantic coast, in the tropics, just south of the Amazon region. Eight of us will be traveling to Fortaleza and some of us will visit Rio de Janerio, Iguassu Falls, the Dunes north of Fortaleza and possibly the Amazon. 

2. Shirley Foreman is JC and planning the inbound for our guests from Central Virginia, August 6th to 11th 2026. Shirley will hold a planning meeting in June to finalize the agenda and our hosts. Contact her if you want to join the fun. 

3. Ravi Verma is the JC planning a special inbound from all clubs in Japan, devoted to English Language Instruction and shared with the Sacramento club. Our guests arrive first in Sacramento around March 27th and then visit us around April 3rd to April 10th. Many of us have already volunteered to host. Contact Ravi if you want to contribute to the event. 

4. The assignment for our international outbound journey in 2027 has just arrived. We are assigned to Tanzania and Freetown, Sierra Leone in Africa, tentatively June to September. We need to get started right away for a journey of this magnitude!

5. Our Domestic Outbound will be for Pikes Peak Colorado in the fall and our domestic inbound will be from Milwaukee in the summer.  We will begin discussing these Jouneys at our May birthday meeting 

Lets Eat Out (LEOs) for 2025

Look to the left in UPCOMING EVENTS to see the schedule of LEOs, Let's Eat Out. LEOs are open to guests and members. If you are new to us you can register on our Meet-up page, or just show up. You will be welcome! For a LEO we all meet at a designated restaurant for drinks, lunch or dinner and possibly share an excursion. 

Local Events

We hold regular meetings including a World Friendship Day celebration, an annual picnic, and a holiday luncheon. We also schedule events with speakers and local tours. In preparation for our journeys, we hold meetings exploring their cultures.