United Way of the Bay Area Blog
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United Way’s Earn It! Keep It! Save It! tax program has kicked off across seven Bay Area counties, aiming to serve 50,000+ tax payers during the 2011 tax season. This year, we’re making a special effort to connect with Bay Area residents, who were laid off last year to let them know they could be eligible for free [...]
Maintaining good credit is important, not only for when you want to obtain a mortgage or car loan, but also for employment and rental applications, new utility accounts, new cell phone accounts, and insurance rates. Most lenders and businesses consider a good credit score to be 650 or above. Here are some tips to improve [...]
Earn It! Keep It! Save It! Regional Director Vanessa Muniz was recently interviewed on Comcast Newsmakers’ East Bay edition. The segment, which you can view below, will air on local cable stations throughout the month of February. Earn It! Keep It! Save It! is the region’s largest free tax assistance program, coordinated by United Way [...]
As cold temperatures linger in the Bay Area, residents who need help paying their PG&E bills can dial 211 to find out if they are eligible for energy assistance programs that serve our region. Residents can also call 211 to find emergency shelters, which have opened in several Bay Area counties to provide overnight accommodations [...]
SparkPoint Marin Center was featured in the Marin Independent Journal newspaper on New Year’s Day. The article, “Marin SparkPoint Center helping residents get — and stay — out of poverty” highlights the story of SparkPoint client Jacek Sochan, who is receiving financial coaching at the center. Here is an excerpt from the article: About 100 [...]
In November, United Way joined our partner Community Action Marin (CAM) for the public launch of SparkPoint Marin Center at CAM’s Prosperity Partners office in San Rafael. SparkPoint Marin Center is one of four SparkPoint Centers in the Bay Area that are working with families to help them achieve lasting financial stability. United Way and [...]
United Way of the Bay Area received news this month that we will receive a $325,000 grant from the IRS to support our Earn It! Keep It! Save It! tax assistance program in 2011. For the third year in a row, our United Way received the second largest grant of the 177 awarded by the [...]
Interested in helping out in your community? As an Earn It! Keep It! Save It! volunteer, you’ll provide free tax filing help to low- to moderate-income families to help them keep more of the money they have earned. We also need volunteers to greet taxpayers and serve as interpreters at local tax sites. Many volunteers [...]
As part of FedEx’s 6th annual Cares Week, a team of 45 FedEx employees from around the Bay Area helped United Way host a community resource fair at the SparkPoint Oakland Center on September 24. The volunteers completed a wide range of tasks to support the event, which was held at Lion Creek Crossings, the [...]
Emma, a mother of three, first came to the American Canyon Family Resource Center three years ago to participate in a “Positive Discipline” parent education workshop. Since then, she has taken advantage of several resources offered by the Resource Center, including free tax assistance, financial coaching, credit counseling, and employment resources that have been added [...]
