Hendrick Friendship House

Hendrick Medical Center, in partnership with the Hendrick Auxiliary, has extended the boundaries of traditional healthcare and medicine by involving ourselves personally and directly in our neighborhood.
The Hendrick Friendship House, in replication of the Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal Model, is a platform for developing mutually enhancing relationships within neighborhoods and ultimately creating safer, healthier communities. Through this collaboration with the College Heights Neighborhood, Hendrick has chosen to demonstrate that building a healthy community begins close to home.

The Hendrick Friendship House is the second Connecting Caring Communities Friendship House in Abilene. It is also home to Community Coordinator, Stephanie Fletcher and her family. Volunteer staffed tutoring, educational classes and other activities for children, youth and adults are available at the Hendrick Friendship House for the residents of the neighborhood. To find out what's going on at the Friendship House or how you can help, visit the Friendship House calendar or visit our Volunteer Opportunities page.

Friendship House Facts

• The Friendship House is located at 1249 North 17th.
  
• It is the second of many Friendship Houses to be planted in select neighborhoods in Abilene as part of a community-wide initiative to renew and revitalize depressed neighborhoods.
  
• The first Friendship House in Abilene, sponsored by Hardin-Simmons University, was established in 2004 in the North Park Neighborhood on Hickory Street.
  
• The Abilene Friendship Houses are modeled after the Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal project; SBCR now has eight Friendship Houses and a 12 year history of using the model to transform neighborhoods.
  
• Each Friendship House has a paid coordinator who lives in the house with his or her family. She develops relationships with children, youth and adults, resulting in a heightened sense of safety, pride, stability and quality of life in the neighborhood. Our coordinator becomes, in essence, a part of a growing Neighborhood Peace Corps in Abilene.
  
• The Friendship House, which was formally dedicated in 2006, provides a springboard for Hendrick’s ongoing efforts to be a pacesetter in this and other community initiatives.