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 celebrated our birthday (41 years) and the Friendship Forest at Prusch Park (30 years) on Saturday May 17th.  About nine of us started with a late-afternoon dinner at 3:00 PM at La Mas Querida, a Mexican restaurant near Prush Park. The food was great but this popular restaurant was noisy! After dinner we will moved to inspect the Friendship Forest. It is still there! The work Karen arranged was great! We are still planning for some further maintenance. 

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 from 1:00 PM to 5:30 PM for BBQ around the pool!  Bunny and Dave will be doing the planning and Dave will grill. Bring a side dish or dessert for all and any beverages you want. An event notice will appear shortly. 

4. We hold our Annual Meeting with Journeys in Photos on Saturday September 6th, 2025 at the Santa Clara Library again. 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. 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. 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 at Michaels at Shoreline in Mountain View. We install officers ,eat and are entertained by the Mountain View Madrigal Singers. 

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. May June is the end of the rainy season before it gets too dry.

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

3. We will share an international inbound with the Sacramento club in September. We will host a group from all Japan clubs. The theme will be English Language Instruction along with the fun. 

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

Upcoming Journeys for 2025

1. Our Inbound Journey this year from San Jose, Costa Rica, on August 9th to the 16th was finally cancelled. Eventually they could not get enough ambassadors to travel. Thanks to Rose Marie Everett,  the journey coordinator, for all her hard work. Better luck next year. 

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

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 have 10 confirmed travelers, along with our first new member this year! A first Zoom planning meeting will be held shortly. Look for the event when it appears. 

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

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

LEOs in planning for this year are:

-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.