LutheranHANDS began as a mission trip of 11 friends in 2008 to the Gulf Coast in response to Hurricane Katrina.  Two of those participants, both youth leaders in the Lower Susquehanna Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America at the time, decided to organize and lead a mission trip the following summer for as many youth and young adults as they could support in an effort to share their life changing experience and spark interest in mission work throughout the synod.  In 2009, they returned to the Gulf Coast with buses packed with 150 eager Lutheran youth.  The volunteers on that trip unanimously fed back their excitement to have been part of such a life changing experience and their desire to continue to serve in this manner.  It was on this trip that the organizers realized God's call to them was to continue to provide mission opportunities to as many people as they could support.

They returned to the Gulf Coast in 2009 a few days before the ELCA National Youth Gathering to provide extra days of community service opportunity to the 200 youth and young adults who traveled with them.  In 2010, LutheranHANDS traveled to northwest Indiana in response to intense storms and massive flooding which left the region in a state of rebuilding.  After seeing the streets of Nashville, TN with over a foot of water, the organizers decided to take 150 youth and young adults to help the Country Music Capital of the World rebuild in 2011.

The LutheranHANDS Foundation was officially incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2012, operating under the same focus of providing structured and educational mission opportunities to youth and young adults.  We continue to provide mission opportunities in the form of trips departing from Central PA and surrounding regions to various areas around the country.  We are actively seeking ways to provide more opportunities to our growing community of volunteers and expanding our gegraphical reach to place more volunteers in more locations.