quaker
service in america
During
the twentieth century, many Quaker organizations were
created to respond to Friends’ needs for service opportunities
and
connection with one another. In 1917, shortly after the United States
entered WWI, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
was founded in Philadelphia to enable American Quakers to act on
their humanitarian concerns.Much of its early effort was to prepare
Quaker conscientious objectors for relief and reconstruction work
in Europe. During World War II, the AFSC also helped to organize
many Friends on the West Coast to provide legal and material
support to interned Japanese-Americans, including helping to place
Japanese-American students in colleges and universities east of the
Rockies. Today, the AFSC has regional offices throughout the United
States including the Pacific Southwest Regional Office in Pasadena,
and the Pacific Mountain Regional Office in San Francisco.
These
modern-day service activities grow naturally out of Friends history.
Prison reform, relief for victims of strife, feeding
the starving, improving the plight of native peoples are themes
woven into the Quaker experience — in America and elsewhere.
Friends’ concern
for the political process led to the founding of
the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker
lobbying group in Washington DC. FCNL enables Friends and likeminded
people to follow and influence legislative issues. They "seek
a world free of war and threat of war; a society with equity and
justice for all; community where every person’s potential
may be
fulfilled; an Earth restored.” (FCNL mission statement)
The
Friends Committee on Legislation (FCL) is based in Sacramento, and
is charged with maintaining a Quaker presence in
California’s capital while informing Friends of upcoming
legislative
issues and the voting records of elected officials. Although it was
not
established to serve beyond California, it does serve Friends within
the state and some members of Pacific Yearly Meeting in other
areas. Both FCNL and FCL reflect Friends’ lively concern
for and
interaction with the worldly society in which they live.
Although
Friends withdrew from politics early, they have maintained a lively
concern for the health of the social order. Led
by
conscience to resist participation in war and looking toward a world
beyond war, Friends have supported the efforts of the United
Nations and established an office in Geneva, Switzerland and one
at
the U.N. headquarters in New York. These Quaker United Nations
Offices (QUNOs) serve representatives, ambassadors and
legislators, by presenting accurate, unbiased data and by creating
a
safe space in which informal conversations can occur.