Julie Davis, Waking Up to the Need




After 30 years living in the Washington DC area, tax attorney Julie Davis didn’t realize the terrible need that existed right in her own neighborhood. Now she does, and is working to make a difference.

“I was living in a bubble,” admits a somewhat embarrassed Julie Davis. Looking back on nearly 30 years as a prominent Washington tax attorney, Davis says she spent her time commuting between her home in Chevy Chase and the downtown offices of Caplin & Drysdale, where she practiced law. She raised her children, spent time with friends and was active in local politics, all the while unaware of how much Montgomery County was changing around her.

As Montgomery County’s population had exploded to close to 1 million residents, so had its poverty rate— today, some 25 % of its 140,000 county public school kids qualify for free meals, a federal measure of poverty. “I had no idea until I saw it firsthand,” she says.

Now retired, Davis has spent the past several years getting reacquainted with her community and, in the process, has taken an active role in helping to ensure that every resident has access to basic human services such as food, shelter and clothing -- no easy undertaking in the current economic climate.

“At first, I thought I’d just stick my toe in the water,” says Davis. Instead, she jumped right in. As vice chair of the board of The Community Foundation for Montgomery County and co-chair of its Neighbors in Need Montgomery Fund, Davis pays regular visits to local safety net organizations—Manna Food Center, the Coalition for the Homeless, IMPACT Silver Spring, Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Health, and Interfaith Works, among others. She has witnessed the long lines at Shepherd’s Table, where families in need visit the free clothes closet, some arriving as early as 6:00 am.

Having met many County officials as well as dozens of nonprofit leaders and the families they serve, Davis is struck by “the large number of people who need safety net services and need them quickly. The County Department of Health and Human Services recognizes this and The Community Foundation for Montgomery County recognizes this, too. Launching the Neighbors In Need Montgomery Fund has been a real ‘Yes We Can!’ moment.”

Davis hopes more residents will get involved in supporting their neighbors during this economic crisis, noting that donations to Neighbors in Need Montgomery have ranged from $25 to two matching $100,000 gifts. “Your contribution, no matter how small or large, may go to a family that is otherwise skipping meals,” she points out.

 

She has friends who are reluctant to contribute to organizations they are unfamiliar with. “As a former tax attorney, I have those same concerns,” she says. “With Neighbors in Need, the money goes to the right sources, is well spent and will do a lot more good than you can even imagine. If there’s one thing The Community Foundation can provide, it’s that level of assurance.”

In addition to co-chairing the Fund, Davis and her husband, John Metz, give generously through The Community Foundation in three special ways. They are donors to the emergency Neighbors in Need Montgomery Fund and to the Sharing Montgomery Fund, which provides core long-term support to many key nonprofits serving vulnerable families, and they make many charitable gifts through their own family donor-advised fund.

“Montgomery County has been very good to me,” David adds. “Sentimental as it sounds, I want to give back.”