Welcome to Baltimore Yearly Meeting!
Baltimore Yearly Meeting nurtures a vibrant Quaker community across the Mid-Atlantic. BYM unites Friends from 50 Quaker meetings and worship groups throughout Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
Together at BYM Friends we
Strengthen Local Meetings
The monthly meeting is the beating heart of everything we do. At its core, the yearly meeting is an association of Quaker monthly meetings and other local worshipping communities coming together to support one another. We share a common Faith & Practice - and we share our skills, gifts, spiritual leadings, and resources across local worshipping communities.
Grow in Spirit & Community
Quakers believe that there is “that of God” in every person—an Inner Light that is loving and honest and can lead us to truth and justice. As BYM Friends we gather for Meetings for Worship four times each year to discern the Leadings of the Spirit and to conduct our community business and three more times throughout the year for spiritual formation retreats.
Nurture Youth
BYM has a special commitment to the spiritual, social, and emotional thriving of all young people. Our camps and youth retreats are vibrant, diverse, youth-centered communities. BYM scholarships and grants provide material support to children, families, and child-serving organizations, and the Religious Education Committee connects meetings to resources for nurturing youth.
Connect & Serve as Friends
Working together is an extension of our worship into the practical life of Quakerism. Working together benefits both the wider community and those Friends who participate. We serve together on Committtes, gather for service projects and social witness, and are part of the worldwide body of Quakers - connected to 14 organizations and hundreds of thousands of Friends around the world.
Promoting Social Justice Through Human Rights Learning in the Nation’s Capital
Jean-Louis Peta Ikambana of the American Friends Service Committee DC Office will be speaking in the Community House at 12:30. This talk will be part of the Centennial celebration of AFSC’s establishment. Banners describing the AFSC’s work of the 100 years will be on display. As we celebrate AFSC’s Centennial commitment to opposing injustice and promoting peace with justice, we invite you to come learn about its work in Washington DC. In 2008, at the urging of the AFSC-DC, the District of Columbia was declared a Human Rights City by a City Council Resolution (CER 17-461), the first in the United States. A Human Rights City is a city where human rights (enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) are learned, known and respected, consistently. Laws and policies undergo citizen review, and are found to be in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Public budgets are reviewed by citizens and fully support sustainable programs that ensure citizen’s full realization of their humanity. Children are taught and practice human rights as part of their school curricula. All citizens are both aware of and conversant with human rights; able and willing to stand up to protect human rights for themselves and each other ( Shula Koenig, Founder of People Decade for Human Rights Learning (PDHR, www.pdhre.org). AFSC-DC has partnered with DCPS since 2008 to expand human rights learning to our young leaders. Since, DC youths have been using human rights as a framework examine and address social justice issues. In 2016, to celebrate the 67th anniversary of the UDHR, our young leaders wanted to look at progress made by the Human Rights City: Do they view their City as a Human rights City? This group of young people from different neighborhood embarked in a fact-finding project that allowed them to critically look at how D.C. is living up or not to the ideal of a Human Rights City. They presented their finding to City officials urging them to take action for social change.
