LAMPa is very happy to welcome Donna Skinner Echols to Policy Council as a representative of Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod!

Donna has 42 years of experience in the development, management, monitoring and administration of family services programs for at-risk children and families. She has worked in the urban settings of Houston, TX, Philadelphia, PA, and Chicago, IL. In addition to program development and implementation, she was responsible for monitoring the programs for quality assurance thus assuring compliance with city, state, and federal policies, procedures and regulations.

She presently serves on the Board of West Mount Airy Neighbors (WMAN) and chairs the Quality of Life Committee. WMAN is a community-based volunteer organization committed to preserving and enhancing the quality of life in its richly diverse urban neighborhood. She also serves on the Executive Committee with oversight of strategic planning, evaluation of the executive director, and program development and implementation.

She also serves as the chair of the “Quality of Life Committee of WMAN and is pleased with a series of “Conversations” entitled: “RACE STILL MATTERS: RENEWING COMMUNITY IN MT. AIRY” which she and the committee launched last year after the murder of George Floyd to address racism “head on” and to bring about an awareness of how “Systematic Racism” effects the quality of life of all the residents residing in the Mt. Airy Community.

In addition, she serves on the Church Council of Christ Ascension Lutheran Church and has served on the Church Councils of Augustana Lutheran Church of Houston, Texas and Chicago, Illinois respectively. Since 2017, she has served as a Guest Teacher in a variety of schools in the School District of Philadelphia. She is presently a Building Substitute Teacher at Henry Houston School in Mt. Airy.

“I have known Donna for over 30 years,” says Bishop Davenport, “we first met when she served as Director of a newly formed Youth Outreach Adolescent Community Awareness Program whose emphasis was working to educate youth in the height of the HIV epidemic in the African Descent population in Philadelphia. She is a teacher with a passion for education, equity and social and economic justice who happens to be a longtime Lutheran with a history of social ministry service.” 

She is an advocate of programs that empower at-risk children and their families to gain control of their lives ensuring they become socially responsible and economically self-sufficient members of their respective communities. Her sense of her present call is to engage her community in conversations that address the pervasive nature of Systematic Racism in our nation which she believes is a “root cause” of the abject poverty which many families continue to experience.

She brings years of experience working in the urban milieu advocating for children and families. Her hope is to fulfil her ardent desire to serve God through her service on the Policy Council. She plans to be an ardent supporter of LAMPa’s mission and looks forward to her tenure on the Policy council.