A sisterhood built on Fridays

Friday night rolls around. The clamor of different plans circles — like staying in or even a date night — but these girls know what they will choose. 

They call themselves “FERDA,” a name quickly coined on the premise that they built their friend group around (the phrase “FERDA” is also commonly used as slang for “for the girls” or “for the boys”). In their first year, they learned that life gets busy. With differing extracurriculars, majors and additional relationships, FERDA wanted a way to prioritize their newfound friendships. 

This is where “FERDA Fridays” was born. 

Every Friday night, this group would come together for a new event. While each week looked different, there was one common rule: No boys allowed. 

Betsy Sonneland, a fourth-year visual arts major, has been part of FERDA since the brainstorming stage. Being one of the group’s “board members” responsible for planning weekly events and announcements, the primary goal of the group is clear to Sonneland.

“[FERDA is] a group of girls coming together to just enjoy each other’s company, do funny things, host events and overall just have a blast together on Fridays,” Sonneland said. “They’re always ready to be silly but also always ready to be there for me, and I’m always ready to be there for them.”

Over the years, the group that began in Point Loma Nazarene University’s Klassen Hall has continued to evolve, welcoming new faces, establishing its own Instagram to store announcements and memories and even creating a “Declaration of FERDApendence.” 

According to Sonneland, consistent with FERDA’s theme of doing funny things, this declaration is “mostly just silly” and another excuse to host a fun event. 

This year, the group created a slip and slide into the ocean, which they slid on before signing the declaration. 

While this is just one event, members reflect on many other “FERDA Fridays” through the years.

Julia Dombrowski, a fourth-year applied health science major, said last year’s pickleball tournament was one of these. 

“We called it [the] ‘BYOB [bring your own boy] Pickleball’ tournament, which meant [to] bring your own boy, so everyone in FERDA brought a boy to play with for this pickle tournament,” Dombrowski said. “It was awesome having the guys there as well, just to kind of incorporate them because usually our events are strictly girls, but it’s fun now and then when we incorporate our guy friends.” 

With girls from various groups across campus, including Alpha, Hooligans, student athletes and Residential Life, FERDA didn’t limit its liveliness strictly to their own events. 

According to Dombrowski, some of her other favorite memories came from school-organized events such as Bobby B’s Birthday Bash, where the whole group would attend together. 

“I feel like FERDA always brings the party to any school event that Point Loma puts on, and that’s something I think is really special about our friend group,” Dombrowski said. “We are so committed to Point Loma. We’re so committed to this school, the events they put on and we love to have a good time at those events.”

While fun events may be at the surface of FERDA, at the root, their commitment to meeting weekly has created deep bonds. 

Lauren Haughey, a former PLNU student, moved away to take over her family’s commercial salmon fishing business in Alaska after being part of FERDA for over a year. 

Despite the busyness of her own career and distance from her best friends, Haughey said the connections she made with the group made her feel close to San Diego.

“A lot of my really good friends who were there made sure to reach out, see what I was doing, where I was and update me on what was going on back at school,” Haughey said. “I’ve also been able to make it out, visit and also go to camp for a weekend up in Shasta last spring, which was really cool, and it really felt like I just never left.”

Dombrowski also recalled that trip to Mount Shasta, Calif., and how it reminded her of the nature of FERDA being rooted in inclusivity and being good friends to one another. 

“I remember being able to look around the room of all the girls that were there, and there was like 19 of us there, and looking around and being like, ‘Wow, I could spend quality time with each one of these girls one on one,’ and that is something that I think is really cool,” Dombrowski said. 

As spring commencement approaches, the bulk of this group prepares to cross PLNU’s Greek Amphitheatre and begin their futures outside of college. Still, they hope their commitment to each other every Friday for the last four years has prepared them well.

“I really think it’s possible to have a friend group that stays in touch after graduation,” Dombrowski said. “It just takes intentionality, and this friend group has already been so good with being intentional that I’m not really worried that this is something that’s going to go away after graduation.”