Friendly Center Inc

Friendly Mart: Community Market Access Program

Friendly Mart is Friendly Center’s mini-mart model located in the City of Orange and Buena Park, serving families across surrounding communities with dignity, choice, and access to essential food. Families shop for what they need, honoring culture and reducing waste. Because a child cannot learn on an empty stomach, food comes first. Friendly Mart ensures families have the nourishment they need to build stability, succeed in school, and move toward a better future. Your support puts food on the table and gives children the chance to thrive.

Unlimited Futures

Friendly Center's after-school tutoring program, which begam in 1998 to combat issues like school failure, high school dropouts, and gang involvement, has evolved into Unlimited Futures program. This initiative is shifting towards an education-to-workforce model within the career technical education (CTE) sectors, addressing the pressing need to alleviate poverty and align with local industry demands. By aligning education with workforce, we aim to create new job opportunities for both high school and adult learners. Partnering and collaborating with local community colleges and adult education programs aims to support Summer CTE Bootcamps such Drone Technology, Ai, and entrepreneurship. Additionally, our CTE pathways through STEAM raise awareness of opportunities and synchronize them with local school programs. Presently, The Power of Me offers free academic tutoring at two locations for kindergarten through middle school students from low-income families. Services include homework assistance and STEAM-focused enrichment activities aimed at closing the achievement gap and reducing dropout rates among at-risk K-8th graders. Friendly Center remains committed to helping our students attain high school graduation and pursue post-high school educational opportunities, recognizing that breaking the cycle of poverty hinges on the successful education of our youth.

Family Services

Comprehensive Family Services (CFS) addresses the barriers that poverty-stricken families face by offering free programs and services that work to physically, economically, and emotionally strengthen families. The goal is to break the cycle of generational poverty, creating stronger households enabling children to grow up in safer communities. Using the family resource center model, low-income families and individuals have access to an array of over 15 free services and programs at each of our sites. With 102 years of service to the community, Friendly Center is a deeply trusted resource offering an environment that is welcoming, respectful, and culturally responsive. English, Spanish and Vietnamese languages are spoken, reflecting the diversity of the communities we serve. CFS are responsive programs that are designed to help low-income families, as well as those in emergencies, by providing services, support, and encouragement as they move toward self-sufficiency.