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 us, and to cultivate friendships. We are a member club of Friendship Force International.

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.

Inbound Journeys
We host ambassadors from other countries or areas of the U.S. We arrange parties and tours for our guests, and many of our local members participate in the events. Volunteer home hosts provide a place to stay for the guests. We also have dinners or pot lucks that are arranged for small groups so that more members can participate.

Outbound Journeys
We serve as ambassadors to other countries, stay as guests in someone's home, and experience the daily lives of the local area as well as tour their local communities and experience their cultural activities. We travel as a group and are hosted by a local club of Friendship Force International. Usually there is an optional tour before or after the home stay.

Read more about our journeys.

SF Bay Area hosts joined in the fun with their guests when the Sapporo Club
presented a program about Japan, a fitting culmination of a week dedicated
to language and cultural immersion. Photo courtesy of Karen L. McCready

Our club, founded in 1984, presently has about 80 members. Our members live from Novato in the North Bay to San Jose in the South Bay and from Oakland to Livermore in the East Bay. Because our membership is scattered over a large area, we hold events throughout the Bay Area.

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. Our members may also travel with any other U.S. club, if space is available.

Annually our club hosts at least one incoming international journey and travels on at least one outbound international journey. We also have "domestic" journeys with other clubs within the United States.

Our club publishes a newsletter 4 or 5 times a year and maintains a "Friendship Forest" at Prusch Park in San Jose.

Friendship Force International, a 1992 Nobel Peace Prize nominee founded in 1977, is an international nonprofit, volunteer organization. It is a global community comprising 360 clubs in 55 countries. Its members are ordinary people of all ages who share a desire to spread goodwill, to better understand people of other cultures, and to value one another as friends.

When local hosts open their homes to visitors from other countries and cultures, true understanding can develop though the sharing of meals, conversation and the routines of daily life. Strangers become friends. These friends change the way we see the world.

With the Friendship Force, not only do we discover other cultures, but we become citizen ambassadors for our own culture. We become part of changing the way others see the world as well.

Every friendship formed across the barriers of nationality, language, religion or politics makes the world a better place. This year 18,000 Friendship Force members are eager to welcome you.

For a look at current worldwide journeys through Friendship Force go to https://friendshipforce.org/journeys/.

For more about Friendship Force International, visit https://friendshipforce.org.