Fuchsia Ward, president of the advisory board of the Friendship House, describes the community center as an asset to Bakersfield. Photo courtesy of the Kiwanis Club.

By Michael Wafford

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at 2 p.m. Thursday for the reopening of the Friendship House.

The community center will provide services and activities for the area surrounding its location on 2424 Cottonwood Road in Bakersfield.

Fuchsia Ward, president of the advisory board, said the center seeks to provide “something for everyone” in the community, a safe haven for children and a way to bring out the potential of the area.

Throughout its nearly six decades in the community, the Friendship House has had a positive impact, said Sharon Spencer, secretary of the advisory board.

“It’s done a lot to help kids in the neighborhood, and to keep them away from drugs, and letting them choose another path,” Spencer said, “and some of them have gone on to be teachers and social workers and all kinds of things.”

The Friendship House features a gymnasium complete with basketball courts, a computer center for children and adults to use, and a library. Construction on the baseball diamond, soccer field and courtyard is ongoing. There will also be job postings, sports leagues for children and a Women, Infants & Children office on the center’s grounds.

Ruby Larkin, 48, is happy to see the Friendship House back and hopes to place her grandson into a basketball program. “We came here all the time,” said Larkin, who reminisced about her times at the center.

“I talked to one of my friends today and I told her I remembered that my mom told us we couldn’t go into the swimming pool,” said Larkin, laughing. “As soon as I came in I ran and jumped in the water. I couldn’t swim. She [her friend] had to come in and get me.”

The center will be patrolled by security guards during the day, and surveillance cameras will be on 24 hours a day.

Ward estimates around 1,000 people showed up during the opening ceremony, with more trickling in through the course of the day to celebrate the reopening. It was a happy moment in her life.

With the reopening of the Friendship House, Ward was able to grant one of her mother’s final wishes. “Before she died [in 2006], she told me, ‘Fuchsia, don’t let the Friendship House die. Make sure you stay there and work with them and build it back.’ So this is one of the happiest days of my life. And I know that my mom is looking down on that and saying, ‘Well done, well done.’ ”

Ward, 66, herself is a product of the Friendship House. She began going to the community center when she was in elementary school. “It was [through] California Migrant Ministries and the United Church of Southern California,” she said. “And they had heard that this was a low-income community; this was in the ’50s, and they wanted to do something in the community for the youth.

“They got us in by doing arts and crafts in a vacant lot. Then when the adults got involved, we moved to a church.” They didn’t stay in the church for long.

In 1957 the Kern County Land Co. donated a building and land, while working together with the community, Ward said. The building was named the Friendship House Community Center. The charitable spirit of the Bakersfield community also assisted with the construction of the current Friendship House, Ward said. The city of Bakersfield donated $150,000, the Bakersfield Realty Association donated trees for landscaping, and individuals donated money in amounts varying from $1,000 to $1,500.

The old motto of the Friendship House was “Helping people help themselves.” It was a message Ward took to heart.

“Telling me, as a little kid who grew up with 11 brothers and sisters, that I could be anything I wanted to be. That I could do anything I wanted to do — all I had to do was set my mind to do it and to work with people.

“I can remember not really liking school,” said Ward, now principal of six continuation schools in Kern County, including Summit High School in Lake Isabella and Vista Continuation High School in Bakersfield, “but I knew at the end of my school day I got to come to a happy place. After school I could come here and be around happy people, be around people who told me good things: ‘You’re bright, you’re intelligent, you can do anything you want to do.’ It’s something that I didn’t get in school.”

Ward took their advice and encouragement and went on to attend college at Bakersfield College and California State University, Los Angeles. She said that she decided to return to Bakersfield to give back to the community that helped her.

“Now there’s hope,” Ward said, “that this center is going to become what the community really wanted to become, because Community Action Partnership [of Kern] has said, ‘This is the start. Community members, come and tell us what you want to see here. We don’t want to just impose upon them. Come and tell us what you want to see happen here.’ “