Members of the Administrative, Nominating and Quaker Life Councils received an update regarding the Staff Voice Policy on July 14th at their joint meeting. The update is shared here for all Friends. This policy was formally adopted in November 2017, following a discernment process involving all members of the staff …
Experience Native American Culture at Historic Arch Street Meetinghouse
The Indian committee honored and fortunate to have the opportunity to present an exciting and moving work of art to the Quaker community and beyond. The Indian Committee is supporting a performance of Tatanka vs. the Black Snake by Coopdanza, Inc. We felt it was within our guidelines to not …
Exciting Workshops at Annual Sessions July 26-28
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is hosting 30+ engaging workshops (on Faith, poverty, the Middle East, music and peace, art, medicine, education, gardening, government, inclusion, poetry, art, Quaker practice, Resource Friends, Collaboratives, Indigenous peoples, Aging, History and more) at Annual Sessions 2018! Workshops are a wonderful opportunity for meeting members/attenders to extend …
Faith & Practice Release Celebration is Saturday July 28th at Annual Sessions
Our new version of Faith & Practice is currently in production. You can order a copy for yourself, or place a bulk order for your Meeting that you can pick up at PYM offices in the Friends Center. Order Now! Mail Orders to your home or meeting will be handled by the FGC …
Resource Friends at Annual Sessions!
At the 2018 Annual Sessions this year, there will be a booth during free time and dinner time on Thursday and Friday where Resource Friends will be available to talk with you about their work and what they might be able to support for you and your meeting. They will …
Friends in Fellowship
Friends in Fellowship at Sessions Our season of compelling Friends in Fellowship lecture events ended this May, but we will be offering seven Fellowship Workshop events this July at Annual Sessions, on July 26, 27 and 28 at the College of New Jersey. You can attend any of the 30+ Thursday, …
Woodstown Friends Meeting’s Strawberry Supper Raises $5K for Fire-Stricken South Jersey Ambulance Assoc.
Chicken salad, rhubarb and, of course, strawberry shortcake and hand-dipped ice cream. For 126 years, the Quakers at Woodstown Friends Meeting have been serving up platefuls of this traditional fare at their annual Strawberry Supper. The proceeds always go to a charitable cause which could be scholarships for local students …
Memorial Service and Obituary: Penny Colgan-Davis
Date for Memorial–Saturday, July 21 at 10:00 A memorial service for Penny will be held Saturday, July 21 at Germantown Monthly Meeting, 47 W. Coulter Street, Philadelphia, PA 19144. The service will begin at 10 AM. Contributions in her name can be made to the Kelly School Library Fund; c/o Germantown Monthly …
Youth Programs at Annual Sessions: Coming Home
“Can we go home this summer?” “What do you mean?” “Can we go to PYM Sessions?” This was the conversation I had with my then-10 year old, a few summers ago after our family moved to New York. Going to PYM Annual Sessions felt, for him, like going home — …
Bringing It All Back Home Again
Something significant & sobering is happening in Montgomery, Alabama (MGM). PYM can participate in the reckoning MGM is going through. Montgomery was a hub for warehousing & auctioning of enslaved persons. It is now recognizing that history with the Legacy Museum: Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, & a ten minute walk …
Mourning the Passing of Penny Colgan-Davis
Dear Friends, We are sad to report that our beloved clerk, Penny Colgan-Davis, passed away quietly in her sleep, last night. Penny has been many places and done many things in a life of service to others as she followed divine leadings. A mentor, career teacher, school director, principal, head …
Slavery and Mass Incarceration; CPMM Members Observe Cash Bail Hearings
If we are proud of our heritage of opposition to slavery, we have no choice but to take a stand on mass incarceration. Last spring Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting passed a minute in opposition to mass incarceration. As one step in bringing that minute to life, to test the role …
Friends inspired by NY Friend Sandra Steingraber speak out against Pipelines and in favor of Clean Energy
Members and attenders of Westtown and other Monthly Meetings joined several hundred in West Chester on June 9th to publicly witness on behalf of our neighbors facing the dangers of new pipelines snaking their way through Chester and Delaware counties designed to carry high risk liquefied gas pipelines. The Mariner …
39th Annual Nanticoke Lenape Powwow
The 39th Annual Nanticoke Lenape Powwow held on the Salem County Fairgrounds June 9th and 10th may now enter into history. Pow-Wow, from the Wampanoag Indian word “pauwau,” refers to a gathering, conducted by a holy man/ medicine man, to heal the souls and bodies for his people. In western …
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Friends support arrestees at Demand the Ban action outside Senator Toomey’s office in Philadelphia
On May 16, 2018, Fran Sheldon (Providence Meeting) and Paul Sheldon (Lansdowne Meeting) participated in a Demand the Ban action in Philadelphia to demand that Senator Toomey co-sponsor Senate Bill 2095 that bans the sale of assault weapons. As part of a group of thirty-three individuals who had previously received …
Quaker Wedding at Merion Meeting History Festival
On Saturday, May 19, Abington Friends juniors, Margaret Silbaugh and Lily Ehsani, dressed in the clothes of a Quaker bride and groom circa 1850. In the Merion Friends meetinghouse, they repeated their vows to each other before a congregation of visitors in modern dress. The wedding of Leonard Brenton and …
EMIR Healing Center ministry supported by Green Street Monthly Meeting
Green Street Meeting’s Quaker Social Change Ministry group in support of EMIR Healing Center is having a “Fill a Bookbag” drive to gather school supplies for 85 children participating in the center’s programs this year. EMIR stands for “Every Murder is Real.” The center, in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, …
Uniting for economic and social justice with other people of faith: POWER Philadelphia, Metro, Central and Northeast
Over the past several years, three monthly meetings in Philadelphia–Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia (Arch Street), Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, and now Germantown Monthly Meeting–have joined a broad-based interfaith coalition founded in 2011 under the name Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild, or POWER. POWER, affiliated at the …
Closing the Grant Making Circle
By Doug Humes Quaker Buildings and Programs Granting Group We grantmakers (at least for “bricks and sticks” – building and renovation projects) participate in the project at the beginning and in the middle, but typically we never see “the end”. At the beginning, we receive an application that describes the …
Young Adult Friends Minute of Appreciation and Incoming Clerk
On April 27-29, the Young Adult Friends community gathered at Green St Monthly Meeting for our annual spring retreat. In business, the body approved by consensus the nomination of Carl Stanton as Pastoral Care Committee co-clerk. The body also approved the following minute of appreciation for outgoing clerk/YAF, Janaki Spickard-Keeler. …