About the State College Friends Meeting

Our Meeting is a Quaker local congregation. Here you will find various aspects of our Meeting.

 

Typical Sunday schedule

Business Meeting Sunday

9:00 a.m.   Meeting for Worship for Business
11:00 a.m.   Family Meeting for Worship
11:00 a.m.   Guided Meeting for Worship
(primarily for children)
12:30 p.m.   Potluck lunch

Once a month we hold Meeting for Worship for Business in the morning from 9:00-10:45. Child care is available in the nursery. Neither early meeting for worship nor First Day School is held on these Sundays.

Meeting for Worship for Business is usually the first Sunday of the month. However, it is sometimes moved to avoid holiday weekends. June business meeting is usually the second Sunday to avoid conflict with Centre Quarterly Meeting and there is often just one Meeting for Worship for Business in the months of July and August.

Most Sundays

8:45 a.m.
10:00 a.m.
11:00 a.m.
11:00 a.m.
11:15 a.m.
12:20 a.m.
 Early Meeting for Worship
Adult discussion
Meeting for Worship
Junior Meeting for Worship
First Day School
Social hour

Early meeting for worship tends to be a smaller and quieter meeting for worship. There is currently no child care for this meeting, but if there is sufficient demand, it will be offered.

Most Sundays (except for the summer months, holidays, and business meeting Sundays) there is an adult discussion held from 10:00-10:45 in the meeting room. During the adult discussions, child care for all ages is available in the nursery.

Also on most Sundays, junior meeting for worship is held from 11:00-11:15 in one of the classrooms downstairs. Children are welcome, with or without parents. (Note that children are welcome to attend the regular meeting for worship with their parents from 11:00-11:15 or longer.)

First Day School for children meets by age group in various classrooms in the education wing and the basement. Childcare is provided for very young children in the nursery.

During the social hour, snacks, juice, coffee and tea are available for everyone in the social room after singing and announcements. We hope visitors will stay and introduce themselves to us.

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A History of State College Friends

And this I know experimentally -- George Fox, 1691

State College Friends Meeting has roots dating back to 1790. The first Friends Meeting in Centre County was Centre Monthly Meeting, located in Halfmoon Township. Friends held Meetings for Worship there from 1790 to 1933, when Centre Monthly Meeting was laid down and Centre Friends began attending State College Meeting.

The State College Friends Meeting had been founded in 1918 to meet the needs of the Quaker students and a few local residents. The first regular business meeting of the State College Friends Meeting took place in 1925, although Friends had attended Meetings for Worship in Hannah Maule's home beginning in 1912.

In 1927, the State College Friends Meeting built a meetinghouse at 318 South Atherton Street (now the home of the University Mennonite Fellowship), and enlarged it in 1948-50. The present meetinghouse with its adjacent educational wing was completed in 1980. The Meeting has two schools under its care -- the Cooperative Playschool, a nursery school affiliated with Friends since the 1950s, and the State College Friends School.

The Friends School, founded in 1980, provides a strong K-6 academic program grounded in the Quaker principles of equality, community, simplicity, and harmony. Meeting for Worship and non-violent conflict resolution are of central importance. The school is under the care of the Friends Meeting, but separately incorporated. Approximately one-third of the ninety students come from the Meeting community.

State College Friends Meeting is unusual in being part of two Yearly Meetings. In the early years, Friends from Baltimore Yearly Meeting and the two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings supported State College Friends Meeting. When the State College Meeting became independent it retained affiliation with both Philadelphia and Baltimore, as a member of the Upper Susquehanna Quarter (PYM) and Centre Quarter (BYM).

Our ties to both PYM and BYM reflect our historic heritage and relationship to both Yearly Meetings. The earliest Friends in the area (BYM) settled in Halfmoon Township. Two old meetinghouses exist near Stormstown today -- one used by the Grange, the other abandoned. Friends Cemetery near Stormstown dates from the earliest days of Friends in Centre County. Another old meetinghouse and cemetery are located in Bellefonte.

A History of the Friends Meeting in Centre County, Pennsylvania, by Emily and Elwood Way, offers a full account of local Quaker history.


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Related organizations

*** not yet implemented ***


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How we do business

(or, "Who's in charge here, anyway?")

**** Not yet implemented ****'


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Links to State College Friends' web sites

Kimo Press, at http://www.kimopress.com is a publishing business owned and operated by Chuck Fager

Chuck Fager's "A Friendly Letter" is at http://www.afriendlyletter.com

Chuck Fager's personal home page is at http://www.quaker.org/~cf/


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