Hill Gates’ journey: discovering community and purpose at Friends House

Hill Gates’ journey to Friends House was somewhat accidental. Hill herself wasn’t necessarily looking to move; her mother lived in Santa Rosa and had a friend at Friends House. While visiting her friend, Hill’s mother found Friends House to be a lovely, relatively small community with lots of outdoor space. Hill also came to appreciate the community as she visited. When Hill’s mother was ready for a move, Friends House seemed like the natural next step. Since Hill was living on her own at the time and her mother needed a little extra support, they moved to Friends House together.

“I feel really lucky that I got the time with my mother, to get to know her a little better in the last few years of her life,” Hill shared. “Now my mother’s gone, I’m still at home. I really like the many tangible benefits of living at Friends House, like the gardening plots, but even more than that, I like the way of life here. There are things put in place that channel and shape your life, but it’s also possible to go your own way. When you are trying to build community, it is nice to have that freedom.”

Before becoming a resident at Friends House, Hill lived an adventurous life, having unique experiences around the world. “After completing graduate school with a Ph.D. in anthropology, I traveled extensively to Taiwan and to China. I found China to be one of the most interesting places in the world,” Hill said. “I got to go to places where no western person had ever been before, meeting people living in essentially pre-industrial civilization and getting to know a part of the world that is still largely hidden and misunderstood, even today.”

One of the most interesting aspects of Chinese culture that Hill experienced in her travels was the meaning of democracy there. “Common people in China are able to have an influence and put a lot of pressure on their government, to make a difference and effect change. It wasn’t as one-sided as many people think,” Hill remembered. “I’m grateful to the leadership of Front Porch for giving the residents at Friends House the autonomy to shape our own local culture and have a say in decisions that affect our daily lives. It’s up to us to use our voices and be a part of the conversation.”

This idea of individuals being able to have an impact is what drives Hill to support Friends House through donations to the Front Porch Communities Foundation. “I know my gift can have a direct and tangible impact on my community,” Hill said. “I have recently started supporting the Friends House Employee Scholarship Fund as I saw it as a way to help some of the staff who didn’t have the same opportunities available to them as I did at their age. For example, one of the housekeepers who used to clean my cottage was recently able to get her medical assistant certification through the scholarship program. It means so much to be able to be a part of that.”

Originally published in the Summer 2024 issue of Community Matters