Friendship Club Executive Director, Jennifer Singer reports: on Monday, December 3 we hosted our annual holiday reception, honoring our donors, friends and volunteers. It was a magical evening, bringing our girls, staff, board, and supporters together in the spirit of friendship and togetherness.  A highlight was honoring our 2012 volunteer of the year, Barbara Thomas.  Barbara who has served as an angel, field trip chaperone, driver, board member and board president has been critical to our success over the last seven years.  Volunteer Coordinator, Alisha Rodriguez-Pagan, thanked Barbara for being someone she can always count on to be flexible, accommodating, and consistent in her volunteer duties, qualities that are ever important when working with our population.  All of us thank Barbara from the bottom of our hearts for her commitment to the girls and the program.

I would like to thank all of you for your contribution to the success of The Friendship Club in 2012. Together we have strengthened our girls and in turn, our community.  We cannot provide this critical lifeline without y

The Friendship Club recently received a $6,000 grant from the Charter Oak Foundation, a private foundation headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

This grant will partially fund our College Knowledge and Career Program, designed to ensure that our girls have the opportunities, resources and support to pursue education beyond high school.

Our good friends, Ed and Barbara Thomas played a significant role in introducing The Friendship Club to the Charter Oak Foundation through their friend Betsy Lane.  Ms. Lane is the granddaughter of Mrs. Mary Gould, founder and president of Charter Oak Hospital. This highly successful residential facility, located in Los Angeles,  served adolescent girls from high-risk populations, providing them with enhanced life skills and realistic, positive options for turning their lives around.

“When the hospital closed in the late 1970’s, shortly after my grandmother passed away,” said Betsy “the board of directors sold the facility and used the money to launch Charter Oak Foundation. Our goal has always been to continue to serve the same population–girls in high risk situations–through small grants. The more I learned (about The Friendship Club) the more I came to believe that there might be real possibilities for us to help out,” she added.

The residents of Nevada County have been amazing in their support of The Friendship Club over the last eighteen years and we are proud that our program attracted the attention of the Charter Oak Foundation, and for that we have the Thomas’s to thank. People may assume that their connections with neighbors and friends don’t extend very far, but in reality those community connections literally can make a world of difference for those in need.