FGC Friends is a feature of our monthly Vital Friends eNewsletter that highlights a Quaker meeting, organization, or individual Friends who work with FGC to nurture faith and Quaker practice. We’re pleased to feature FGC affiliated New England Yearly Meeting for the month of April.

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends is, like the spring, showing new life and growth. Our 89 local meetings include approximately 5,000 members and attenders, and we are blessed with dynamic year-round retreat programs for all ages. We are seeking ways to be more responsive to issues demanding our attention, including climate change and racism, while strengthening the web of local meetings and people living their faith as Friends throughout the six New England states. We are asking: What gifts are we being given? How can we best use them in the work that God calls us to? How are we called to manifest God’s love in the world?

Some of our current activities include:

•  Partnering with Friends Journal to support Season 3 of QuakerSpeak, featuring the life and ministry of local meetings
• Collaborating with New York Yearly Meeting in a three-year initiative, made possible by the Shoemaker Fund, to more fully welcome and integrate young adults and young families in the life of our local meetings
• Hosting a gathering exploring “Emerging Practices in Quaker Outreach” to be held at the end of April, including Friends from New England and beyond
•  Securing the future of our Yearly Meeting Archives, celebrating new ways to share the living history of New England Friends from the 1650s to today
• Through the newly-created Legacy Gifts funds, providing grants to nourish the new life of ministry rising up in local meetings, especially in relation to climate change and racial justice
• Supporting continuing development and distribution of the Faith & Play curriculum, in partnership with a web of Friends including Friends General Conference, Friends World Committee for Consultation and the Quaker Religious Education Collaborative through bilingual videos, print materials and training
• Building a network of Friends to share resources, knowledge, advice and support among individuals and meetings responding to the issues of aging and the needs of elders with the Support Across Generations for Elders (SAGE) Program