The Friendship Force of Chicago Chapter was founded in January of 1996.
Today it has grown to 80 members in 55 households in Chicago itself and the surrounding suburbs.
Some
of our home hosts live right in the city and others in our surrounding suburban communities. We are lucky to have
an excellent public transportation system and we plan exchanges to include activities not just in Chicago's beautiful downtown
and lakefront parks, but also its many diverse city neighborhoods and our beautiful suburban towns.
Since
inception, our chapter has sponsored several outbound exchanges to Japan and Korea , to Brazil, and to Hamburg,
Germany and St. Petersburg, Russia, to Turkey, to Tbilisi Georgia and Baku, to Indonesia, to New Zealand and most recently
in October 2009 to Mexico City.
With all Chicagoland has to offer, our chapter has been a popular site
for inbound exchanges. In the summer of 2004 we hosted a group of Ambassadors from Turkey, and in September, 19 Ambassadors
from West Alujuea, Costa Rica visited us. Since then we have had visitors from Australia and New Zealand and Germany
and France and most recently Manitoba Canada. In Sep. 09 we hosted a special environmentally themed exchange with ambassadors
from all over the USA and one from NZ.
In November 2009 we are hosting a special cultural exchange from Moscow
that will include artists and performers.
Past inbounds included Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; Gelsesnkirchen, Germany;
Ankara, Turkey, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Nelson, New Zealand; Osaka, Japan; the Gold Coast, Australia; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
As a member of FF-Chicago you are eligible to travel with all
of the US and Canadian FF clubs in addition to the exchanges sponsored by our own chapter. Staying with a family in
another country, seeing the culture through the eyes of a native will definitely change the way you see the world. October
2010 we will be going to Australia, near Brisbane and near Adelaide.
