The history of Friendship Centres in British Columbia dates to 1954 when a group of concerned Aboriginal people in Vancouver formed the Coqualeetza Fellowship Club to provide support services and activities to Aboriginal students moving to the City. Although providing support to students remained a primary objective of this group, the organizers over the next few years found themselves responding to the ever-increasing needs and requests for services from Aboriginal people moving into Vancouver. In 1963, the incorporation of the Coqualeetza Fellowship Club as the Vancouver Indian Friendship Centre Society marked the beginning of the Friendship Centre movement in British Columbia. 

In response to the growing need to provide services to urban Aboriginal people, in 1971, the Federal Government, through the Department of the Secretary of State, introduced the Migrating Native People's Program, which provided core funding to Friendship Centres. Over the next ten years this initiative led to fourteen new Centres being established in BC, attesting to both the need and community support existing across the province. 

In these early years, Friendship Centres were primarily a place where Aboriginal people could drop in and have a cup of coffee; a place where they could socialize with people from their own communities who had relocated to urban communities and to receive emotional support. During these formative years, Friendship Centres offered few direct services as their primary role was to refer people to existing social services agencies. 

While each Friendship Centre is as unique as the community it serves, all are united in their efforts to improve the quality of life of Canada's Indigenous people and to protect and preserve Indigenous culture for the benefit of all Canadians. Friendship Centres are reflective of the communities they serve, governed at the local level and, above all else, responsible to and responsive to the people they serve