FRIENDS CENTER TENANT NEWS, 5/2024
FROM THE DIRECTOR
Friends Center as a workplace for today and the future
This week I watched a webinar on “The Workplace of the Future.” It reviewed the changed needs and expectations for post-covid office work. Planned and spontaneous opportunities to collaborate add a lot of value to in-person work. As a result, facilities to support a variety of uses are in demand.
Fortunately, Friends Center was already configured to meet many of these needs pre-covid. Our office suites provide you access to shared, private conference rooms. You also have access to our public meeting and conference rooms in the larger facility.
We’re keeping our eyes and ears open for today’s best practices, to see how we might evolve further. If you have thoughts, please feel free to drop me a line: cmohr@friendscentercorp.org.
If you’re new to Friends Center, or have been less present recently, you may wish to re-familiarize yourself with those shared spaces. Our website has a list of Friends Center meeting rooms with descriptions.
Meanwhile, our event rentals to outside groups are also back in full swing. Please refer your colleagues to Shakirah Holloway, our Events and Administrative Manager, who can help them find the right space for their needs: sholloway@friendscentercorp.org or (215) 241-7098. Thanks!
—Chris Mohr, Executive Director
AROUND FRIENDS CENTER
END OF SCHOOL YEAR CELEBRATIONS!
Friends Center is also a go-to location for Philly nonprofit events, for today and into the future! We can accommodate in-person and hybrid events in many of our large and small conference rooms and meeting rooms. Check out our event venue options here in Center City Philadelphia: https://friendscentercorp.org/event-space/.
May and June are the time for graduations and moving-up celebrations. Here some you’ll see around Friends Center in the coming weeks:
- 5/31: Friends Child Care Center end of year celebration
- 6/7: Friends Select School 8th grade moving-up ceremony
- 6/8: Friends Select School high school graduation
- 6/10: Delaware Valley Friends School high school graduation
EQUITY PARTNER NEWS
AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON MIGRATION:
Q&A with Eunice Ndonga, AFSC’s International Migration Director
Q: What must be done to support people displaced by climate change?
“Low-income countries and communities—particularly Indigenous communities—have made the fewest contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, but they bear the brunt of climate injustices. That’s where the conversation must begin….
“Organizations such as AFSC are working on this. We are calling on governments to move money from military spending, national security, and controlling borders. Instead, governments must invest in meeting migrant needs, defending human rights, and preventing climate injustices in the long term to promote peace.”
» Full interview: https://afsc.org/news/qa-impacts-climate-change-migration
CENTRAL PHILADELPHIA MONTHLY MEETING (CPMM)
QUAKER ACTION MID-ATLANTIC REGION
Sun., 6/23, 12:45 – 1:45 pm
Quaker Action Mid-Atlantic Region (QAMAR) will facilitate a discussion on its public policy work to address the climate crisis and reduce gun violence. We will also introduce our new intern, Andrew Cadwallader, hired through a grant from the CPMM Friendly Fund. Come learn how YOU can help!
QAMAR is a new 501(c)(4) organization initiated by Quakers, and which welcomes participation by all who share a vision for a peaceful and sustainable world. QAMAR seeks to effect policy change in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. See https://www.quakeract.org/.
This will be a hybrid event in the Rufus Jones Room. Refreshments will be served. (Contact the Meeting office at office@cpmm.org if you’d like the link to attend by Zoom.)
PHILADELPHIA YEARLY MEETING (PYM)
PREVENTING ELECTION VIOLENCE
Workshop with Emily Provance
June 4 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
The danger of election violence in 2024/2025 is real. The United States currently exhibits many of the societal risk factors that make election violence likely. But there’s also hope. There are things we can do about it, and the team for nonviolence is much bigger than we think.
This event will be part lecture and part interactive, with follow-up resources suggested. It’ll draw on best practices for election violence prevention as developed internationally. We’ll focus on how ordinary people can take specific actions to apply these strategies in their own communities. You’ll also hear about some of the underlying mindsets that make this work possible.
Facilitator Emily Provance is a Quaker traveling minister, currently working with groups across the country on election violence prevention.
MORE: https://www.pym.org/event/election-violence-prevention-with-emily-provance/
TENANT NEWS
GENDER JUSTICE FUND
Spring 2024 Newsletter
At GJF, we are honored and inspired to work with and support organizations who don’t give up. We understand that change doesn’t happen overnight and have seen first-hand that the impact of our actions many not truly be seen until months, years, or even further into the future. We hope you’ll join us in rejecting apathy: join an organization, vote, donate, make your voice heard. Democracy hangs in the balance and our rights are being eroded; now is the time to be a part of the solution. — Farrah Parkes, Executive Director
» Read the full newsletter here.
FRIENDS SELECT SCHOOL
DEI Book Awards
Wed., 5/29, 5 pm
Historic Arch Street Meeting House, 4th & Arch Streets
Friends Select’s Lower School presents the second-annual Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Book Awards ceremony at the Arch Street Meeting House. There will be book sales and games, and the ceremony begins at 6 pm. Refreshments will be served.
For this year’s DEI Book Awards, Friends Select is proud to partner with Hakim’s Bookstore, which is Philadelphia’s oldest Black-owned bookstore dating back to the late 1950s. Books will be available for purchase through this partnership.
WIDER QUAKER COMMUNITY
WORLD PLENARY MEETING OF FRIENDS
8/5-12/2024
Johannesburg, South Africa | Online
The Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) World Plenary Meeting is a meeting for representatives from all four FWCC Sections to undertake FWCC business, surrounded by worship and fellowship with Friends from around the world. Three interrelated strands will inform the World Plenary Meeting: ubuntu/community, healing historical injustice and care for creation.
Click for the online program.
Onsite registration is full, but online registration is still open.
OUTSIDE FRIENDS CENTER
LEARN ABOUT OUR COMPOSTING SERVICE!
Bennett Compost, Friends Center’s composting vendor, will be hosting FREE public tours of the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Compost facility that they operate in Lawncrest! Tours are the 4th Thursday of every month starting this month, Thursday May, 23rd.
» For more information or to register, please click here.
Happy Composting!