About Our Club (from the FFPPR Handbook March 2025)

Friendship Force International (FFI) is an international nonprofit organization founded by Wayne Smith with the support of then President Jimmy Carter. The organization was introduced on March 1, 1977 at a meeting of state governors in the White House.

The purpose of the organization is to create an environment where personal friendships can be established across the international barriers that separate people. Friendship Force achieves its goals through the travel of goodwill ambassadors to destinations throughout the world and international home-stays. In each city, the ambassadors share the lives of their host families for one week.

Today there are 350 clubs active in more than 60 countries throughout the world. For many years the headquarters of Friendship Force International was in Atlanta, Georgia. Because of the Covid pandemic, that physical office was closed, and a “virtual” office was formed. You can find out much more about the organization’s history and activities on the web at www.friendshipforce.org. We have our own website as well - http://friendshipforcepikespeak.com.

Our club originated in 1987 as a satellite of the Denver club, and in 1992, we formed our own separate club, the Friendship Force Club of Southern Colorado. In 2005, we officially changed our name to the Friendship Force of the Pikes Peak Region to more accurately describe the area in which our members live and to which we invite other clubs throughout the world. Since we became a separate club in 1992, we have been on outbound international journeys to Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Peru, Russia, Taiwan and Turkey, and have participated in many domestic journeys to other clubs in the United States. We have also hosted clubs from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, England, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Peru, Russia and South Korea.