Ricardo Perez is the recipient of the 2025 Brendan Unitt Community Service Award
Larimer County Office of Emergency Management coordinator Ricardo Perez is the recipient of the 2025 Brendan Unitt Community Service Award.
The Board of Larimer County Commissioners celebrated Perez’s work in the community, particularly in underserved communities, finding ways to help improve their lives. In his work role, Ricardo helps to fill in the gaps in preparedness and resources for those communities.
With his bilingual language skills, Perez has been able to reach out to those in underserved communities, assess what their needs are, and then work toward fulfilling those needs. He has volunteered in several community projects, including serving on the La Familia Board and working toward improving the lives of youth.
After residents of the Nueva Vida Mobile Home Park learned the land for their park was being sold for development, Ricardo was able to gather the residents together to purchase the land for the park so they could remain there, instead of moving. The result is now a more closely connected and engaged community, which is more resilient.
Perez later noticed that the children in the park were playing soccer in a dirt field with no equipment or fencing for their safety. Being a former professional soccer player, he began working with his connections and a variety of partners to donate equipment, netting, and other accessories to transform the field into a new soccer park. “By building the soccer field, you made those kids in Nueva Vida feel special,” said Larimer County Commissioner Jody Shadduck-McNally. “That’s something you can’t put a price tag on.”
Building the soccer field enhanced the neighborhood even more. “The sense of joy that you gave to the kids to have a real soccer field instead of a flat piece of land and have something that was worthy of them --- you saw that need and reached out to people and made it happen,” said Larimer County Commissioner Kristen Stephens.
Not being one to slow down, Perez is now working to create the Ricardo Perez Youth Soccer Program that will help pay for soccer supplies and equipment, and build more soccer fields for youth, as well as continuing in philanthropy.
The Brendan Unitt Award is named after a Larimer County Ranger who lost his life attempting to save distressed boaters at Horsetooth Reservoir. In addition to his job as a ranger, Unitt spent many hours volunteering his time in countless public service jobs in the community.
