Statements

Mission

202 Friendship House helps transform the lives of alcoholics. We offer a safe, clean, comfortable space for people in recovery to gather for 12-step meetings, socialize, have a snack, and find resources to support them.

Every day, 365 days a year, we see hundreds of people working together to recreate their broken lives, hold on to their sobriety and sometimes bounce back from their slips with a welcome and no judgement. We help them get through their toughest days and celebrate their victories in a truly diverse community joined together by a common goal.

Since 1963, 202 Friendship House is living proof that together we can accomplish what seems inconceivable alone.

Background

Chartered in 1963, The Friendship House has been and continues to be a refuge for those who have found themselves enslaved by alcoholism and drug addiction. It is safe place where men and women, at no cost or fee, surround themselves with like minded individuals, from every walk of life, sharing in the journey to recovery. At Friendship House, miracles are seen every day, as many achieve in fellowship, what could never have been achieved alone. 202 Friendship House is open from 8:30 am until 9:30 pm 7 days a week, 365 days a year. There are AA meetings open to anyone who has a desire to stop drinking, seven times per day. There is also one Al-Anon meeting per week for anyone affected by someone with alcoholism. The building serves as a community center for people to who want to be in a safe, drug and alcohol free environment between meetings. Our coffee counter also serves as a referral source for people to find other recovery meetings and other resources that can help with recovery. We offer sober social events so that people new to sobriety can see that 'we are not a glum lot', and that we want to be 'happy, joyous and free.'

Impact

The Friendship House, known literally worldwide has been, and remains, a safe and comfortable place for recovering alcoholics for over 56 years. Our major accomplishment is that we are a totally free recovery facility which welcomes people of all ages, races, sects, denominations, genders and gender identity, and that we are able to help all of them to find lasting sobriety. The Friendship House served over 2500 recovering alcoholics and drug addicts per week, over 100,000 per year, by providing group and one on one sponsor/sponsee meeting space, referrals to drug and alcohol treatment facilities, halfway houses and temporary housing. In 2021, we utilized grant funding to keep all of our staff employed, rent a tent to create outdoor space for our meetings to continue, acquired technology to run zoom meetings and when we transitioned back into an in-person space, used that technology to run hybrid meetings. We began reaching back out to the 30 local recovery facilities to encourage them to bring their clients back to our meetings. We have helped newcomers who come to us right out of jail, and we have been available for visitors from out of town who need to ensure their sobriety while away from home. Our women's meetings draw participants from treatment facilities every week. Our members are providing help (sponsoring) to many people in jails and treatment facilities. Our Sunday night meetings draw over 100 young people every week. Our Saturday night speaker meeting continues to be widely attended. We have introduced an early morning meeting that is slowly growing. With a grant from the Frist Foundation for a speaker system, we can broadcast the talk throughout the building on Saturday night. We are surveying clients twice a year so that we can see how we can best help our newcomers as well as our old-timers. Goals for 2021/2022: Add to our endowment so that we will be financially sound for decades to come. Attract more people with long-time sobriety, especially to our afternoon meetings. Those meetings often are filled with newcomers, and they need more people who know and work the AA program to guide them. Add more sober social events, including a Karaoke night, cookouts and movie nights. Increase the number of women attending both our women's meeting and mixed meetings, and to provide opportunities for women to socialize and for newer women to meet women with longer term sobriety. Provide training for our staff to help them feel more confident de-escalating situations with challenging clients. Create updated referral resources and better educate our staff about what types of external services are available to support our clients.

Needs

1. Building maintenance and repair; ($7,000.00) 2. Sober alcoholics with good recovery to support those of our meetings that are mostly attended by newcomers 3. Administrative and support staff ($25,000.00 annually to supplement membership dues and private donations) 4. $500,000 to complete our 1,200,000 endowment to guarantee our ability to stay open. 5. Volunteers to create content and increase our reach on social media 6. New chairs for one of our meeting rooms

CEO Statement

I thoroughly enjoy the role of Executive Director at The Friendship House. On a daily basis, I get an opportunity to see people who have been coming here for 30 years or more reach out to support the still terrified, overwhelmed, newly sober people who walk through our doors not knowing how to get through the day sober. You can hear laughter in our halls, on the porch and in our snack bar at all times of the day, despite the seriousness of the disease being fought by our members. We are working to find ways to better support carers of young children and to attract people with longer term sobriety.

Board Chair Statement

I am excited to be chairing the board at The Friendship House. We have done so much good for so many over the years, and we are rededicating ourselves to the house, to make sure that it is a safe. warm and welcoming center where people who want to recover from the disease of alcoholism can find the help that they need. We have some basics to revisit, like a review of our by-laws and policies and procedures manual. We are looking to the future by building an endowment and creating systems to make the house more functional. It is an exciting time to be volunteering for Friendship House.

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Mental Health & Crisis Intervention  - Substance Abuse Dependency, Prevention & Treatment
Secondary Category:	Human Services  -
Tertiary Category:	-

Areas Served

Middle Tennessee, South Central Kentucky, North Central Alabama

TN - Davidson

TN - Cheatham

TN - Montgomery

TN - Sumner

TN - Wilson

TN - Williamson

TN - Dickson

TN - Smith

TN - Rutherford