Friends General Conference warmly welcomes Kody Hersh to the role of Young Adult & Youth Coordinator.

Kody will work closely with members of the Gathering team, including Interim Director Liz Dykes and Conference and Events Coordinator Elizabeth Piersol Schmidt, toward the goal of spiritual development and ongoing wellbeing of youth and young adults participating in FGC programs. He will also work closely with the Junior Gathering Subcommittee and its clerks, the High School Coordinators, the High School Friend in Residence, the Adult Young Friend Coordinators, and the Junior Gathering Subcommittee of the Long-Range Conference Planning (LRCP) Committee.

Kody is no stranger to youth work or religious education. They have recently worked with Santa Fe Monthly Meeting as Children and Youth Coordinator, Orlando Monthly Meeting as a Youth Coordinator, and Southeastern Yearly Meeting as Youth and Young Adult Coordinator and Event Facilitator. Kody also has youth work experience with Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Germantown Friends School, New York Yearly Meeting, and various FGC ministries. His current work with Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples and Community Peacemaker Teams is very important to him.

In their spare time, Kody likes reading, cooking, long and rambling walks, and bird watching. They are also an avid reader. “I usually have between three and a dozen queer young adult novels checked out from the library, plus other novels and nonfiction. I just finished Healer of the Water Monster and Answers in the Pages.” Over the holidays, he is excited to start The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester and Inherited Silence: Listening to the Land, Healing the Colonizer Mind.

Kody will work remotely but can be found at various in-person and virtual FGC events.