JaMel Perkins has been a community volunteer and activist for the past 40 years. Her areas of interest are education, women and children's empowerment, environment and human rights. For the past 25 years since moving to California, she has been directly involved with the issue of domestic violence with the past four years focusing on human trafficking both domestically and abroad. She was the President of the Board for Battered Women's Alternative (now STAND) in Concord, and Board President of Partners Ending Domestic Abuse in San Francisco. She was appointed to serve on the Justice and Courage

Panel, and currently serves on the Mayors Task Force on Human Trafficking and the San Francisco Collaboration Against Human Trafficking. She is the past President of the San Francisco Education Fund and past chairman of the Wellness Programs for UCSF. She has been married to her wonderful husband Tom for 49 years, has a 43 year old son and daughter in law and two of the best grandchildren, who all share in the family philanthropy.