Autumn Byars, LAMA Hunger Visits NJLC

On Sunday, August 25, our community will welcome Autumn Byars in worship to share about her experiences as the first Hunger Fellow to be placed in the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of Arizona (LAMA) office.

You might be wondering: what is a Hunger Fellow?

It is a year-long experience through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that involves “leadership development and faith formation with impactful advocacy that move us (God’s church) towards an end to hunger and a just world where all are fed.” To learn more about the ELCA’s Hunger Advocacy Fellow program, click here.

Hunger Fellows are placed throughout the ELCA Churchwide organization: the ELCA D.C.-based advocacy team, with the Lutheran Office for World Community, and in four ELCA-affiliated state public policy offices. Read the bios of young adults serving as 2023-2024 Hunger Fellows here.

We are overjoyed to welcome Autumn Byars to NJLC this August to speak about her experience as a Hunger Fellow, share the highlights of her work from this last year, and share her impressions and hopes for God’s church as a young adult serving in church leadership.

Autumn’s Bio is below:

Autumn Byars is the first Hunger Advocacy Fellow placed with Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of Arizona! She is a life-long Lutheran from the southwest. Her parents taught her that civic engagement, advocacy, and the democratic process are tools that can and should be used to further Christ’s directive to love and protect our neighbors. In high school, Byars took this philosophy as her own, and began participating in small-scale advocacy and grassroots activism. She attended Arizona State University, earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts in the Spring of 2023, while working at Maricopa County Voting Centers, sewing masks during the pandemic, and organizing protests and civic engagement with her peers.  After college, she sought work that would allow her to serve her community and dedicate her time and energy to improving people’s lives.