LAMPa is pleased to welcome a 2023-24 ELCA Hunger Advocacy Fellow, Quentin Bernhard, to our team! The Hunger Advocacy Fellowship program provides young adults with a year-long experience serving with ELCA Advocacy offices throughout the United States. They come from a variety of backgrounds and offer energizing and renewing gifts wherever they serve. Bernhard is part of the sixth cohort of fellows that have served the larger advocacy team, and the second fellow to serve with LAMPa. 

Bernhard comes to the work with Pennsylvania roots and global perspective. He grew up in the Lehigh Valley, graduated from Muhlenberg College and just returned from a year in Yeumbeul Bene Baraque, Senegal, where he served with ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM). 

“I hope that serving with the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania this year will be a way for me to be in accompaniment with others and for me to live my values as a Lutheran and as an engaged democratic citizen,” Bernhard said. “As a recently returned Young Adult in Global Mission with the ELCA in Senegal, the importance of being in community, living in strong interreligious relationships, and decolonizing our ways of being are important present concerns for me. I trust that my time with LAMPa will bear many fruits as God continues to surprise me in unexpected ways and remind me of the goodness and grace in our world—and as I continue to engage with others for more justice in that world.”   

A 2020 Muhlenberg graduate, Bernhard majored in history and political science and minored in Spanish. He was active with the Student Government Association, orientation, peer tutoring, writing tutoring, and campus chapel and spent a semester studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has worked with community and advocacy organizations including the Allentown School District Foundation, the Lehigh Valley Zoo, the Climate Action Campaign, Conservation Voters of PA, Common Energy, and Action Together NEPA.  He is currently a member of New Life Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Tripoli.  

 “Quentin’s passion and accomplishments at such a young age give me hope,” said LAMPa Director Tracey DePasquale. “The Church is alive and well in young adults like Quentin and others who are striving to live in the way of Jesus.  We are excited to be one of the places he uses his gifts in this next year to help transform the world.” 

Please join us in welcoming Quentin to LAMPa, and pray for him and the other Hunger Advocacy Fellows as they enrich the work of advocacy throughout our church!