Our mission is to share the lives of our neighbors in Fairhill Square, in community service, giving testimony to the unifying power of God’s love... At Casa Amistad/Friendship House, the ministry supports the work of Friends and neighbors around Fairhill Square.

The Neighborhood: The Fairhill Square area has experienced many of the worst ills that we find in our cities. Our neighbors have struggled courageously. Together in 1996, the reclaimed the park and assumed responsibility to care for it themselves. Little by little they have developed an organization: The Neighbors of Fairhill, that unites their efforts.

Casa Amistad: Here we live in Community while nurturing the seeds of community in the neighborhood. Here we meet and worship as we seek to center our lives and service in the Spirit. The house is open to everyone, a friendly place where residents, neighbors, and visitors can feel safe and spiritually refreshed.

How We Work Together: The neighbors of Fairhill Square have responded to our presence with encouragement, opening doors, sharing stories of struggle and success, and joining in common work. Together since 1995, we have: organized regular park cleanups, united the neighbors to keep sidewalks in one block clear of trash, collaborated with a local school to remove graffiti from the park, cooperated with the Ecology Team from the Julia de Borgos bilingual middle school, persistently called city agencies until they repaired park benches and play equipment and boarded up abandoned houses, cleared the site for a community garden, and found a new sense of belonging, self-reliance, and trust.

Most inspiring to us has been a sense of renewal within the neighborhood. God is alive in our midst, present in our work, awakening us to the possibility of love made visible in our community.