FGC Friends: Grass Valley Friends Meeting
Grass Valley Friends Meeting became a Monthly Meeting of the College Park Quarterly Meeting and Pacific Yearly Meeting in 1966. Founded initially as a worship group in 1962, the nucleus group that formed the meeting included 6 individuals who were members of a Methodist adult Sunday school class. While none of the founding members were Quakers, most were pacifists. The meeting was originally located on the rural grounds of the John Woolman School, a Friends’ high school boarding school. Today, Grass Valley Meeting has 40 members and an additional 30 attenders. Most First Day Meetings for Worship have approximately 25 to 30 adults and 4 to 8 children in attendance. Grass Valley Meeting became an affiliated Monthly Meeting of FGC in 2016.
Friendly Facts (courtesy of Member Don Kewman via email):
- “Our community is located in the foothills of the magnificent Sierra Nevada Mountain range. Many Friends have located here to enjoy a slower and less congested rural life and immerse themselves in the natural surroundings of our biotically-diverse lower montane zone. This is the zone where the blue oak and gray pine woodlands of the lower foothills gradually transition into the Ponderosa pine dominated mixed evergreen forests that characterize the middle elevations of the Sierra Nevada. Our relationship with nature enlivens our spiritual fellowship.”
- “Our meeting house is located on the 236-acre Sierra Friends Center (Woolman.org) that hosts educational programs as well as one Quarterly Meeting per year. Many members of our meeting are an integral part of these activities.”
- Grass Valley Friends Meeting holds monthly Spiritual Life meetings, mid-week worship in members home, periodic Bible study series, Friendly Eights gathering. Members of the meeting are also actively collecting household needs for Syrian refugees settling in the region as well as monthly meal preparation and serving at local homeless shelter. Some members are active in gun control legislation, and the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) in prisons. Historically, Friends from our meeting were instrumental in the formation of the Briarpatch Co-op, a local grocery specializing in organic and healthy food choices, and the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Coalition.
To learn more about Grass Valley Friends, visit GVFriends.org.