Community Matters: The Friendship Club
The Friendship Club
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
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On this episode of Community Matters, we’re honored to speak with Sherman Allen, Executive Director of The Friendship Club, the 2025 recipient of the Santa Fe Community Foundation’s Quiet Inspiration Piñon Award. For more than four decades, The Friendship Club has provided a safe and welcoming space for individuals in recovery from alcohol and drug addictions. Today, the Club hosts fifty 12-step meetings each week, produces a podcast with 20,000 listeners worldwide, and offers a hybrid Zoom Room that keeps its community connected while supporting mental, spiritual, and physical well-being.
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About Community Matters
Our monthly radio show invites subject experts and community leaders to talk about the challenges and inequities our region faces and possible solutions that could contribute to its growth. Hosted by Santa Fe Community Foundation staff, Community Matters airs on the third Wednesday of every month at 6:00 PM on KSFR (101.1 FM). Listen to past episodes here.
Community Matters: Environment & Land Stewardship
On this episode, we're joined by Mark Allison of New Mexico Wild to explore the importance of protecting New Mexico’s public lands and waters. From the role these shared landscapes play in our culture, economy, and quality of life to threats like climate change, federal policy shifts, impacts to Chaco Canyon, and the proposed Terrero Mine in the Upper Pecos watershed, we explore what’s at stake — and how community members can take action to help protect the places that define northern New Mexico.
Community Matters: Food & Community Care
In this episode, we speak with Angie K. Smith of Kitchen Angels about the powerful connection between food, health, and community care — and how volunteers are helping deliver medically tailored meals to neighbors across northern New Mexico.
Community Matters: Civic Engagement
How can everyday people shape the future of Santa Fe? On this episode of Community Matters, we talk with Tomás Rivera of the Chainbreaker Collective about housing justice, community land trusts, and why civic engagement at the local level matters more than ever.
