Meet David

TRUSTED COMMUNITY ADVOCATE AND PROVEN PROGRESSIVE LEADER
WITH THE EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE TO DELIVER FOR ALL OF US

David LeBoeuf is a lifelong Worcester resident and proud graduate of the district’s public schools. His background — as a small business advisor, family advocate for survivors of domestic violence, and community leader committed to boosting access to healthcare and affordable housing — informs his ongoing fight for the causes that matter most to our communities. As our state representative, David is delivering for our district and working to build a Commonwealth that works for everyone.

EDUCATION AND EARLY LIFE

David Henry Argosky LeBoeuf was born and raised in Worcester. His grandfather Henry Bonardi was the founding union steward for Teamsters Local 170 at Consolidated Beverages. His mom Carol, also a lifelong Worcester resident, is a retired nurse from St. Vincent Hospital and former member of the MNA. His dad Paul, a former Army medic, continues to work in the medical field.

David attended Heard Street Discovery Academy and Sullivan Middle School, graduating from South High in 2008 as valedictorian and class president. He started college at Clark University before transferring to Harvard College as one of only 13 transfer students admitted internationally. David graduated in 2013 with a concentration in Social Studies (Community Engagement and Urban Social Change) and a secondary field in Spanish.

David showed an interest in public service, advocacy, and local government from a young age. While in high school, he organized his classmates to make the case for increased school funding at Worcester City Council meetings and was selected for the U.S. Senate Youth Program. While he was in college, he filmed meetings of the Worcester School Committee for local government access television (Channel 12) and covered the Cambridge City Council for the Harvard Crimson. David also interned with the Worcester District Office of Congressman Jim McGovern and the Consumer Advocacy and Response and Fair Labor Divisions of the Attorney General’s Central Massachusetts Office. He was awarded the Presidential Public Service Fellowship and ultimately wrote his senior thesis on political participation among Worcester’s Liberian and Vietnamese communities.

During this time, David became involved as a mentor and later board member with the African Community Education program (ACE) in Worcester, which provides African refugee and immigrant youth and their families with academic advising, leadership development, and community support. He volunteered on reconstruction efforts south of Santiago after the 2010 Chile earthquake as part of a Language and Public Service Program and then was hired as a research assistant to a professor in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science examining Latino voter engagement.

One of David’s first paid jobs was as an interim staff assistant in the Worcester City Manager’s Office. There he assisted with press relations, provided extra support for the License Commission, attended meetings of the City Council and its subcommittees, and developed directories for public health services and resource guides for seniors and people with disabilities. David also worked on special projects including economic development campaigns and the response to the Asian longhorned beetle infestation.

Expanding Access to Healthcare Coverage

In 2014, David was asked to implement an outreach program for the Massachusetts Health Connector to educate residents on how to access quality health insurance. His team went door to door and reached the most consumers of all those involved in the project statewide. David later served on the board of the Latin American Health Alliance (Hector Reyes House), which offers substance use recovery services for Latinos.

Increasing Access to Affordable Housing

In 2010, David served as the Central Massachusetts Coordinator for the Campaign to Protect the Affordable Housing Law (No on 2). The next year he continued working in Worcester as a Center for Public Interest Careers Fellow with the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA). In that role he led outreach to Central Mass communities regarding local, regional, and statewide policies on affordable housing and ending homelessness. David would later serve as board president for the Oak Hill Community Development Corporation, which built and maintained affordable housing and ran the NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center of Central Massachusetts.

CAREER IN COMMUNITY ADVOCACY

David has made a large part of his life about building a just and equitable society. This was true before he was elected and has remained true since.

Promoting Access to the Democratic Process

In 2011, before graduating from college, David was appointed director of the Initiative for Engaged Citizenship (IEC), a nonpartisan coalition of community-based organizations focused on connecting civic empowerment and community development. He coordinated voter education efforts and over a dozen candidate forums in historically marginalized precincts. He also organized support for the 2013 election modernization bill (H.3788), which introduced online voter registration, early voting, and pre-registration to vote for 16-year-olds. In past years, David has served as a board member of the League of Women Voters of the Worcester Area, and he spent two years as a volunteer Boston Public Schools weekly civics teacher at the Jackson/Mann School in Allston.

Supporting Innovation and Regional Economic Development

David went on to work at the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a public economic development agency devoted to the growth of the state’s tech sector and innovation economy. As a divisional program manager at Mass Tech Collaborative, David provided strategic support to regional economic development initiatives and public research investments.

Growing Small Businesses

At the end of 2015, David joined the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a national not-for-profit research and advisory organization and the leading authority on inner city economies and the businesses that thrive there. As an urban business initiatives associate, David’s primary focus was implementing the outreach, application, and selection process for a public-private partnership aimed at increasing opportunities for small businesses in underserved communities. In particular, he championed an increase in the participation of veteran-owned and women-owned businesses in the program. While working at ICIC, David was also invited to San Juan to speak at a roundtable with Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner to address the economic crisis on the island.

Providing Access to Justice for Survivors of Domestic Violence

While volunteering with AmeriCorps as part of the Student Leaders in Service program, David’s work focused on helping churches learn how to identify cases of human trafficking and domestic violence so they could get assistance and support. David served as a family advocate at the Worcester Community Connections Coalition, where he worked in case management, providing supportive counseling and making sure survivors had legal representation. In 2017, he was invited to the bill signing for the Massachusetts Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights (H.4364) for his legislative advocacy and work to champion the cause.

CAREER IN SMALL BUSINESS ADVISING

David’s work in small business advising took him around the state and across the country. As a state legislator, his depth of experience and breadth of understanding has given him an edge in examining complex issues to determine how best to support the success of small businesses and protect the rights of consumers.

TODAY

David took office on January 2, 2019, after winning the Democratic primary with over 46 percent of the vote and the general election with over 59 percent of the vote. He was one of only two candidates in Massachusetts to flip a House seat from Republican to Democratic control in the 2018 election cycle.

David, 32, lives in the University Park neighborhood of Worcester and is among the youngest members of the state legislature. Worcester Magazine has named him a “Hometown Hero” and GoLocalWorcester named him one of “Worcester’s Ten Coolest People.” David speaks proficient Spanish and enjoys cooking spicy food, visiting cities, giving restaurant recommendations, kickboxing, and exploring public parks.