Friendship House Community Center (FHCC) was launched in 1957 to provide social services to disadvantaged people living in Southeast Bakersfield. It became a catalyst for change in those low-income neighborhoods, triggering social, educational and community improvements. Leaders at Friendship House helped create a Target Area Program as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960’s and that program became the seed that later grew into Community Action Partnership of Kern (CAPK), the county’s official anti-poverty agency. Years later, when Friendship House faced financial challenges, CAPK was able to bring the community center back into the family, provide a new building and continue Friendship House’s powerful legacy of community change.