Meet Your Volunteer Tax Site

Oakland Grandmother Learns to Drive Big Rigs

June 17, 2010 By Maria Stokes Leave a Comment

East Oakland resident Jacqueline Countee came to SparkPoint Oakland Center in February to get free tax filing help, after her brother’s friend, who is a SparkPoint client, referred her. Free tax help was just the first step for Jackie.

“When I first came to SparkPoint, I just came to get my taxes done and to see if I could get help with my PG&E bill. Before I knew it, I was enrolled in school, and now I’m driving a truck. It’s awesome!” Jackie said.

United Way’s SparkPoint Centers are a one-stop location for a full-range of services, including free tax help and personalized financial coaching , as well as programs that help families move up the career ladder, build assets and manage their credit.

Having worked for many years as a book keeper, Jackie was eager to improve her income. SparkPoint connected her to a subsidized 12-week green-diesel training program, which is offered through The Workforce Collaborative, one of the five partners that work together to serve clients at the SparkPoint Oakland Center.

Jackie received training to secure her Class-A driver’s license, which authorizes her to drive 18-wheel diesel trucks. She has done quite well in the program and is expected to graduate on July 30, when she will receive a certificate that makes her eligible to service and retrofit older, heavy diesel trucks with green-diesel filter systems. This is a valuable skill, given new truck emissions standards recently implemented by the Port of Oakland.

Further, Jackie will qualify to enroll in Alameda College’s Diesel Mechanic Certificate program. Workers in this high growth industry make $15-$20 an hour.

Jackie’s family owns several trucks that need to be retrofitted with green-diesel and driven, which she plans to do! She is also encouraging her sons and grandson to enroll in the ATLAS Green Diesel training program.

Read more SparkPoint client success stories here.

Filed Under: Road to Recovery Tagged With: Alameda, Bay Area, community impact, Education, Income, SparkPoint, success story, taxes

April 15 is Right Around the Corner…

April 12, 2010 By Olu Johnson Leave a Comment

As we head into the final week of tax season, many of the more than 180 free tax sites across the Bay Area are scrambling to help people who have waited until the last week to file. Although time is running short, many free sites are still open and have space available help people file their taxes thanks to Earn It! Keep It! Save It!, a United Way-led coalition. Taxpayers should call 2-1-1 to find the site nearest them (or go here).

Besides helping hard-working families save money, the free tax sites also provide low to moderate income households with access to asset building and income support resources such as public benefits, low or no cost bank accounts and financial education. We also make sure they take advantage of the numerous changes in tax laws and credits such as:

Increased Earned Income Tax Credit – a larger credit for low-income families

Making Work Pay Credit – possible $400 or $800 for married couples

American Opportunity Tax Credit – partially refundable credit for education expenses

New Vehicle Sales Tax Deduction – on top of your standard deduction

Those credits can add up quickly – especially for families with children– and make the difference for a family on the edge.

And even if you might owe, taxpayers should visit a free tax site to discuss their options. The IRS can be flexible on payment plans, short-term extensions, enforcement, and offers-in-compromise in situations where there is financial hardship.

Taxpayers can call 2-1-1 or 800-358-8832, or go to www.earnitkeepitsaveit.org, to find a free tax site near them.

Filed Under: Road to Recovery Tagged With: Bay Area, employement, Income, taxes, United Way Partners

Meet Your Volunteer Tax Site

March 22, 2010 By Olu Johnson 1 Comment

This past January in Fremont, the mayor, members of the city council, and others gathered at Fremont Family Resource Center to celebrate National Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Awareness Day. During the event, Fremont Family Resource Center was also presented with a $10,000 check by Citi to support their EITC work.

According to recent reports, as many as 100,000 Californians fail to file for the EITC leaving as much as 1 billion in unclaimed refunds. This is why our Earn It! Keep It! Save It! coalition partners are so important.

With about a month to go before the April 15 deadline we thought we would check in and find out exactly how the VITA sites are able to do what they do. We asked Carolyn Robertson, Program Coordinator of the Fremont Family Resource Center’s Family Economic Success Program (via email), to tell us more about what they and their volunteers are able to accomplish every year and it’s pretty amazing.

United Way: How many volunteers do you have?
Carolyn Robertson: 76 returning Volunteers, and 69 new volunteers

United Way: How many languages do you offer?
Carolyn: 22 languages, which includes American Sign Language

United Way: How many tax returns are you hoping to do this tax season?
Carolyn: 1,600 returns

United Way: Do you do anything special with or for clients while they are waiting to be seen by tax preparers?
Carolyn: We offer a number of extra services including:

Food stamp eligibility screening

Pre-paid debit card enrollment

Informing customers about other services/programs offered by the Family Economic Success Program and the Fremont Family Resource Center

And offering access to banking institutions: Citibank, Fremont Bank, and US Bank. Bank representatives also serve as VITA screeners and/or translators

United Way: What other services do you connect your tax clients to? How?
Carolyn: The screener & tax preparer interview process provides an opportunity to get a sense of the customer’s situation. In the course of the conversation, or based on the customer answers to the questions on the in-take sheet, we determine if we are able to offer the customer resources in the area of children’s health insurance, financial education, financial counseling/coaching, AC CAN (Alameda County Community Asset Network) banking tool, unemployment services, food stamp & Medi-Cal benefits, family counseling/case management, legal services, or housing services.

United Way: What is the secret to your success?

Carolyn: Keeping our volunteers happy by…

Helping volunteers to succeed in their volunteer roles, providing in-house training for all volunteer positions, providing opportunities for new volunteers to shadow returning volunteers; providing volunteers with constructive feedback; and also allowing volunteers to provide feedback as well

Keeping volunteers informed of our successes/challenges via email and verbal communication; distributing quality alerts to keep everyone abreast of new rules/procedures, etc.

Providing immediate access to site coordinator and/or VITA coaches (expert VITA volunteers) to answer questions or to provide guidance

Having cheat sheets to help with various procedures

Allowing our volunteers to grow professionally and personally:

volunteers are able to learn from one another and transition to other volunteer positions, i.e. greeter to tax preparer, translator to screener, or tax preparer to VITA coach

volunteers are offered an opportunity to learn new skills

Incorporate a recognition event at the end of the tax season
Feed the volunteers!!!

Thank you Fremont Family Resource Center for your help filing the almost 50,000 tax returns we expect this year. They are just one of the many great partners who together with volunteers are making a real difference across the Bay Area.