What is Friendship Force?
Friendship Force is a non-profit international organization that promotes cultural understanding through personal contact. The Friendship Force of Knoxville utilizes travel as a means to meet people from different cultures and places rather than emphasizing the place itself. By being a guest in other people's homes and by inviting them to be a guest in our homes, we believe we can break barriers that divide us.
Change the way you see the world!
- Make friends around the world
- Stay in homes of people around the world
- Host in your home people from around the world
- Foster International good will
- Enhance cross-cultural understanding
For More Information About Friendship Force International, please visit their website at https://www.thefriendshipforce.org/
Note from the President
If all goes as we hope, we will travel in September to Napa and Sonoma counties in northern California, followed by an outbound journey to San Antonio, Texas, in early October. In late October, when hopefully East Tennessee’s fall colors will be at their peak, we will host the San Antonio Friendship Force Club.
Planning a Friendship Force journey during a pandemic isn’t easy to say the least. The Journey Committee, under the leadership of journey co-coordinators Diana Lopez and Leslie Badaines, have spent many hours working on a COVID 2021 journey policy. The FFK Board approved the journey committee’s recommendations at the April 13 board meeting. The board is hopeful that our policy requiring FFK ambassadors and hosts to be vaccinated, as well as the host club’s requirements that their hosts be vaccinated, will encourage many of you to travel and/or host this September and October. We need ambassadors to travel and members to host to make the outbound Napa-Sonoma and outbound and inbound San Antonio journeys a reality!
In the meantime, you have many wonderful opportunities to travel vicariously in the comfort of your own home. The Program/Membership Committee, under the leadership of co-chairs Betsy Tonkin and Helen Bachrach, have planned informative, entertaining, and educational monthly programs. The April 27 general membership event will be about FFK member Diana Lopez’s experience on a Friendship Force International Global Journey to Myanmar. I hope to see you there.
Jayne Raparelli, President