At its meeting on September 29, 2026, the CFP Board of Directors passed a resolution to create a scholarship fund to honor long serving Transportation Coordinator Kim Bell for her many contributions to our organization.
Kim began her journey with CFP by hosting teens from Northern Ireland in 1994. She served on the CFPNI board and joined those people responsible for bringing CFPNI’s peace model to Cyprus. Trained as a lawyer, Kim wrote the bylaws and organizing documents to establish Creating Friendships for Peace.
A native of Pennsylvania, Kim Bell began her affiliation with CFP in 1994 when her husband answered an ad in the local “penny pincher” placed by Founder Peggy Barrett. The ad was seeking families to host a 6-week summer program for the Children’s Friendship Programme for Northern Ireland. That year they hosted their first pair of girls, one from the Protestant area of greater Belfast and one from the Catholic area of greater Belfast. When Ms. Barrett discovered that Kim and her husband both had significant backgrounds in aviation, she asked them to help her, and eventually oversee, the air planning and logistics of CFPNI. Kim has a 28 year tenure with the USAF with ground operations and Homeland Security while her husband has a 30+ year tenure with both the USAF and American Airlines as an international pilot. Kim has been serving CFP (formerly CFPNI) as this nonprofit grew, changed, and evolved into the present Creating Friendships for Peace. She has been bringing her knowledge of global homeland security, her operations and logistics talent, her constantly evolving knowledge of the aviation enterprise industry, and her overall leadership experience to our organization for over the past 30 years. Through the years, she has never lost the concepts of the power of qualitative hosting, and delivering high-human, moderate-tech logistics methods.