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. We are planning for a birthday meeting at Prusch Park. Then tentative date is Saturday May 17th.

3. We will hold our Annual Summer Picnic and BBQ on Sunday July 13th, 2025. As with last year's picnic we will meet around the pool in Eric and Suzan Miller's yard in Woodside.  Bunny and Dave will be doing the planning and Dave will grill.  An event notice will appear shortly. 

4. We hold our Annual Meeting with Journeys in Photos on Saturday September 6th, 2025.  We do some club business and elect officers for 2026.  The primary purpose though is to recap past journeys, plan for 2026 and express our wishes for 2027. Guests and visitors are welcome! This is the time to learn what our club is about. Last year we met at the Santa Clara Library. 

5. Just before Christmas we meet for our Annual Holiday Luncheon on Saturday December 11th, 2025. For the past few years we have held our luncheon at Michaels at Shoreline in Mountain View. We eat and are entertained by the Mountain View Madrigal Singers. Most likely we will continue the tradition this year. 

Potential Journeys in 2026

1. Our international outbound for 2026 is to be 1 week in Fortaleza, Brasil, tentatively in May. Fortaleza is in northeast Brazil on the Atlantic coast, in the tropics, just south of the Amazon region. We might couple that journey to a side trip in South America, the Amazon? The Fortaleza temperature is constant all year 70 to 80 degrees. 

2. We have been assigned a domestic inbound from Virginia, tentatively in August. 

3. We have not been assigned an international inbound. 

4. Our domestic outbound is to the Greater Atlanta area is  in March. 

Upcoming Journeys for 2025

1. Our Inbound Journey this year will be from 12 ambassadors of San Jose, Costa Rica, on August 9th to the 16th. A postponement was necessary because of Visa problems. Rose Marie Everett is the journey coordinator and planning is underway.

2. Our outbound domestic journey with the Western Kentucky Club on May 7th to 13th, 2025 was canceled due to lack of interest. 

3. Our international journey will be in October to November of this year, with two home-stays in Mexico, in Chiapas (Tuxtla Gutierrez) and Veracruz (The Coatepec club in Xalapa). Dave Rice is the journey coordinator. See Dave (daver273@gmail.com) for information about the journeys. We held a planning meeting on March 15th with about nine of us interested. Let us know your interest now! If you plan to go to Mexico, please respond to the registration event in UPCOMING EVENTS. The deadline for member registrations is May 15th. Return the application form to Dave (daver273@gmail.com).

4. Our assigned domestic inbound journey from Ontario Canada in November was canceled. 

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. 

LEOs we have held this year so far year are:

-January 16, 1:00 PM – Burma Bay Café, 47966 Warms Springs Blvd, Fremont. Host: Judy Walter

-February 11, 11:30 AM – Donald Hicks, Campbell. After lunch we will visit the nearby Campbell Museum. Host: Helga Campbell

-March 13, 11:30 AM – El Patio Mexican Restaurant, 37311 Fremont Blvd, Fremont. Host: Martha LeRoy

-April 9, 11:30 AM– Eataly, Westfield Mall, 2855 Stevens Creek Blvd, Santa Clara. Host: Linda Guyer

LEOs in planning for this year are:

-May 4th, 12:30 PM - Burma Cafe, 47966 Warms Springs Blvd, Fremont. Host: Ravi Verma

-June 20, 11:30 – Ginger Café, 398 W. El Camino Real #114, Sunnyvale. Host: Shirley Foreman

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.