South Mountain Friends Fellowship

The first Meeting for Quaker Worship and Fellowship at what is now known as South Mountain Friends Fellowship was on New Years Day, 2005. (January 1, 2005). The year 2009 through 2010 marks the 5th consecutive year that a Meeting for Quaker Worship has been made possible with the commitment and spiritual guidance of Patapsco Friends Meeting (Care and Ministry Committee). On February 19, 2011, our 6th annual celebration was held at the prison. Sustaining what has become an annual event, Friends from Patapsco Meeting, and Deer Creek Meeting traveled to Hagerstown to meet with those Friends and attenders of SMFF who are incarcerated at the prison. With an opening round of welcoming remarks and introductions a period of silent worship followed. A group discussion on Quaker beliefs and practice gave way to individual reflections. Light refreshments were available prior to a chorus of singing and rejoicing until the alloted time set by the prison officials brought the celebration to a close. Continue reading →

On February 1, 2009, South Mountain Friends Fellowship, in Maryland Correctional Institution, Hagerstown, celebrated its fifth year of meeting as a worship group. South Mountain Friends Fellowship began as a conversation between two inmates, Richard and Joe, about their experiences with Quakers at Patuxent Institution. In the spring of 2003, Richard contacted Patapsco Friends to request that a meeting be started at MCI-H. Susan Rose, member of Ministry and Oversight, took the request to her heart and it became her leading to bring Friends together at MCI-H each week in silent worship. Silent worship began in the prison in 2005, with two Patapsco Friends traveling to Hagerstown each Saturday morning. Susan Rose was often one of the two. Continue reading →

Stardust to Stardust is such a short span of time in the realm of the Great Mystery. Could it be that humankind’s greatest struggle comes from the fact that maybe we lost sight that we are spiritual beings temporarily flesh and earth bound?

The earliest Christians have written testimonies of miracles of biblical proportions. New Year’s Day, 2005, three inmates met in a side hallway for discussion, prayer and worship in the manner of Quakers. This act of faith and practice was the birth of South Mount Friends Fellowship (SMFF) which is under the care and guidance of Patapsco Friends Meeting (PFM), Ellicott City, Maryland. There are a total of nine volunteers from Patapsco Meeting and they travel two at a time weekly to Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, Maryland (MCI-H.) It is a prison regulation that at least one member of PFM be present so that SMFF can hold regular weekly Meeting. Continue reading →

For three continuous years South Mountain Friends Fellowship has provided a source of Light for both those imprisoned at the Maryland Correctional Institution of Hagerstown (MCIH), and for those visitors who attend SMFF at this Maryland state prison located in Washington County, Maryland. This is the third Annual Report by South Mountain Friends Fellowship.

Friends from Patapsco Friends Meeting at Mt. Hebron House, Ellicott City, Md., (PFM), were led to establish a place of Quaker Worship & Fellowship at MCIH based on a request by a prisoner confined at the prison. Now three years later PFM continuously provides the support, care and guidance required for the meeting to exist, which is held every seventh day (Saturday) from 9:30 – 11 AM. A viable place of Quaker Worship & Fellowship has sprung forth in this prison of over 2100 men. Continue reading →