Volunteer Spotlight: Luke L.

Now an annual tradition, BHH volunteer Luke Lynch invites his friends and family to join him in a day of service to honor his father’s legacy. Luke’s father, James “Jim” Lynch, passed away in 2013 from cancer when he was 11 years old. Jim had volunteered in the BHH Food Center for the last two years of his life, serving clients weekly.



Bill Harper, BHH Director of Food & Warehouse Operations, worked alongside Jim for the better part of a year until his death. “Jim would say, ‘I gotta bring Luke in here and show him what I’m doing every Friday,’ but he never got an opportunity to do that,” Harper said.

After his father passed, Luke and his mother Sammy started volunteering at BHH as a way to grieve and be in a place that reminded them of Jim. Serving alongside volunteers who had known Jim, their new acquaintances would bubble over with stories of him and his contagious energy. Luke loved hearing all the heartwarming stories about his dad, but he quickly became passionate about volunteering for an entirely different reason. “I had a realization: I could find my purpose and leave a legacy – I could continue my father’s legacy,” he said.

After graduating from high school in 2019, Luke continued his new life of service by enrolling in the ROTC Program at American University in Washington, DC. He was recently appointed to the United States Naval Academy, where only 1,400 candidates are selected each year.

Now eight years after his father’s death, Luke has just started his basic training and will continue to volunteer at BHH on the anniversary of his father’s death and when he’s home from Annapolis.