CNL Member since 2003
Founded: 1995
Visit Website: friendshipclub.org
Facebook: The-Friendship Club
Mission & Purpose:
The Friendship Club engages, educates, and empowers girls at risk. The Friendship Club serves 100 girls annually between the ages of 11-18 in Western Nevada County. Girls join The Friendship Club as they are entering the sixth grade and are encouraged to remain in the program through 12th grade. We help our girls to:
-succeed in school and complete their education
-become confident, independent and self-sufficient
– adopt personal resilience and a healthy lifestyle, and
– develop leadership skills to become responsible, contributing members of their community
A Friendship Club Success Story:
Michelle Schmidt never thought she’d live to see 17. Her parents divorced when she was in third grade. Three years later, her mother announced she didn’t want to be part of Michelle’s life any longer and simply left. Schmidt and her father then lived homeless and out of hotel rooms. Her situation seemed hopeless until her aunt intervened.
“By that time, I was severely depressed and failing all my classes. I didn’t care about anything,” Schmidt says. “I didn’t have the desire to live. I didn’t think anyone would care about me.”
Today Michelle is 24, a graduate of California Baptist University in Riverside and working for Boeing Co. She’s also attending graduate school at Chapman University in Southern California as a prelude to law school or doctoral studies. She credits all this to her aunt’s involvement and a special organization called the Friendship Club.
“They showed that they cared for me, that they were there to support me and wanted to work with me to help me get my life in order,” Schmidt says. “That just changed my world, and I realized the kind of person I wanted to be.”
How CNL has helped our organization:
CNL has helped The Friendship Club at multiple levels.
In working with volunteers: After CNL’s workshop on Recruiting and Retaining Today’s Volunteers, the Friendship Club adopted a specific Volunteer Philosophy and set of policies that we put in place. Volunteers are extremely important to The Friendship Club; anything we can learn about recruiting, retaining and appreciating our volunteers helps us to better serve our girls.
In building the skills of our Board members and staff. The Friendship Club values the varies workshops that CNL offers. All Board members agree to attend one CNL workshop per year in our Board Agreement, because we always seem to gain valuable knowledge and insight from attending. One of Board members wrote: ” As a board member of the Friendship Club, I have grown tremendously through CNL Work. After taking Kimberly Parker’s “How to Ask for Money Without Fainting” (2004), I started thinking that perhaps I really could do that. When I felt ready, I went to Indiana University’s Fund Raising School. This has led to me be capable of being more effective in my board position. CNL’s workshops have given me the nudge to move to the next level.”