Friends International couldn’t serve others without the support of volunteers. We rely on volunteers to help with everything from admin to organising events. There are a number of different ways you can get involved:

Friends International Branch development group

We have a local Branch development group that meets once in 2 months to discuss and pray about the work in Canterbury. If you would like to get involved, please email our chair Kay Lusk

Volunteer for Global cafe and English club or Open House

We are always on a look out for volunteers who can join our Global cafe team to help welcome international students and build friendships with them. We meet on Saturday evenings at 6.30pm for set up an 7pm for prayer prior to the cafe.

English Club meets on Tuesday evenings at 7.30-9pm at Canterbury Baptist church. We do need extra helpers who can help facilitate discussions. Contact us for more information on baiba(at)friendsinternational.org.uk

Open House meal and a Bible discussion runs on Thursday nights 7-9.30pm. We need helpers who can help with leading discussion groups. We are always in need of more people to help prepare and serve food, and wash up. You could join one of our catering teams – each team provides the food around once or twice a term, or just come and offer extra help on a Thursday evening. Food is prepared in the late afternoon/early evening, ready to be served to the students at 7pm. Following the meal, we wash up whilst the students are in their discussion groups. For more details, or to help on a one off basis or more regularly, please contact us.

Canterbury Summer International Outreach

There are various ways you can get involved:

• Bake a Cake
• Host a Team Member (Bed&Breakfast)
• Lend a Bike
• Sponsor a Team Member (70 pounds per team member)
• Join the Team full time or part time
• Be an afternoon/evening helper
• Organise Follow up/Social Event or a Saturday trip

We are in the process of finalising programme for the outreach. For more information, contact us.

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Help organise a summer event or activity

We have a whole programme of events which are run locally. Could your church or homegroup help run an activity? Maybe you could host a baking evening at your home? Or come and help us serve food or drinks? Could you chat to students and give them a chance to practice their English conversational skills? Then please contact us for more details.

 Become a host for Christmas Family Link

We love to offer all the international students we meet the chance to meet local people and be invited for a meal in a local home. Some students go their entire time in our city without ever stepping foot inside a local home. Would you be willing to offer a meal to a couple of students? (NB All potential hosts will require a reference from their church leader). please contact us for more details about how to become a local host.

Help with Sports

We are looking to continue to develop our Sports ministry. If you would like to get involved with that, please contact us.

Join us to pray

We meet around twice a term to pray; please contact us for details of the next prayer meeting. There is also a regularly prayer diary produced by the team – if you’d like to receive this (either by paper or email) then please contact us for more details..