Board Member Spotlight: David Perez
David Perez Q&A
David Perez has been a member of the Ballard Food Bank board since 2012. David has been a tremendous advocate for the Food Bank and a dedicated supporter of our efforts—all while balancing a busy legal career and growing family! We recently sat down with David to talk about his involvement with the Food Bank, how it intertwines with his career and values, and his hopes for the Food Bank’s future.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family.
I’m 36 years old and I’m currently a partner at Perkins Coie LLP here in Seattle. I grew up in Salt Lake City with my parents and three siblings. My parents fled Cuba as refugees as teenagers and met in Miami, Florida.
After doing my undergraduate work at Gonzaga University in Spokane, I went to Yale Law School, where I met my wife. I always knew I wanted to go back to Washington. It took some convincing for my New Yorker wife to move across the country, but we moved here in 2010 and we’ve made it a home for us and our three children.
How did you initially get involved at Ballard Food Bank?
Shortly after we moved to Seattle, I started volunteering at the Food Bank. They asked me to be one of the grocery recovery drivers. I would drive around the city to all of our grocery store partners and pick up produce they were donating to the Food Bank.
After about 18 months, I approached the then-executive director and told her I was interested in being on the board. That was back in 2012 and I’ve been a board member ever since.
Do you have a personal connection to the Ballard Food Bank mission?
We didn’t grow up with very much money. We were food insecure. It wasn’t easy for my parents to feed four ravenous kids but they made it work. My mother was a substitute teacher and my dad was a dishwasher and busboy at the local Denny’s.
I remember there was this bread store called “Dolly Madison” and we would go there all the time. They sold expired food, like bread, for pennies on the dollar. At a young age I got a job as a paper boy, so I got the local newspaper for free. We would cut every coupon out of these papers. I remember cutting so many coupons that my hands would hurt.
My family never had to go to a food bank, but we were close. We were always living on the razor’s edge. Many of my classmates were also from Hispanic families that were in similar situations.
Why did you pursue a career in law?
When I was a kid – probably 11 or 12 – my mom sat me down with my twin brother. She pointed at him and said, “You’re going to be a doctor,” then looked at me and said, “You’re going to be a lawyer.” From then on, I never wanted to be anything else.
I really like law. It’s intellectually stimulating. You can weaponize it for good, use it to make change, affect policy, and stand up to bullies. Ever since I got into law, that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve done work to expand voting rights, end youth incarceration, and stop police brutality.
By the way, my brother didn’t become a doctor. But he did go to medical school and now owns a healthcare company, so we count it.
We understand that you chair Perkins Coie’s Pro-Bono Committee. How do you balance your busy corporate practice and your pro-bono efforts?
If I ever find myself without enough public-interest, pro-bono work, I have to bring in more to find a balance. A man cannot live on contract disputes alone! The pro-bono work that I do with Ballard Food Bank and other great organizations is part of my brand, and the corporate clients like Microsoft, Boeing, Zillow take notice.
I make a point to balance all aspects of my work life with my home life as well. Right when I started at Perkins Coie, I told my partners that I want to be home to sit down and have dinner with my kids every night. Sharing meals with them was non-negotiable.
Speaking of sharing meals, what work are you most enthusiastic about at the Food Bank?
I’d like to see more programs like Weekend Food for Kids. During the school week, children can get breakfast and lunch at school but then we asked ourselves: What were these kids doing on the weekend? If they needed food during the week, they probably needed it on the weekend, too.
You don’t generally think of Northwest Seattle as a place that experiences a lot of poverty, but in reality, there are pockets of acute poverty. We started Weekend Food for Kids by getting in contact with a few Seattle Public Schools (SPS) that each had a small number of requests for weekend food from families. Before you knew it, there were hundreds of SPS students requesting bags of food each weekend.
We identified a critical gap and figured out how to fill it. These are the kind of needs that aren’t necessarily being addressed by the schools or the government. The Food Bank’s program are helping families and improving lives.
What makes you excited about the future of the Food Bank?
The new location is like a new, long-term lease on life for Ballard Food Bank! Operating in a building that we own lifts a huge burden from the organization. The future now is bright and clear.
With our permanent home, we’ll be able to serve more people and serve them better. With income inequality getting worse and worse, our move is more important than ever. So many people rely on Ballard Food Bank for food and other services and we ARE reliable. Like a star in the sky, you can look and the Food Bank is there.
The Food Bank’s new home will include the “Kindness Cafe,” which gets its name from former Board Member David O’Neal who passed away a couple of years ago. Did you know David?
David was a great guy and the financial advisor on the board. We were friendly and always had great banter at board meetings. David was a big believer in small, compounding acts of kindness. He was the kind of guy that would go to a Starbucks drive-thru and leave $100 to cover the next people until it ran out, hoping that the recipients would pay it forward.
People like David O’Neal are the reason that Ballard Food Bank is such a well-run organization. He was a very talented leader and very good at what he did.
What impresses you most about Ballard Food Bank?
People are professional at every level of the Food Bank’s operations. Board members treat each other with respect, staff are treated with respect, volunteers are treated with respect, and most important, our clients are treated with respect.
This is an incredible institution. I love being involved with this organization, and I’ve already told [Executive Director] Jen Muzia, as long as Ballard Food Bank will have me, I want to be here!