Watch & read more about how Anderson Interfaith Ministries is able to assist area families in accessing available resources through The Benefit Bank: Online Networking for SC Families in Need
WSPA News Channel 7

White House Conference on Economic Opportunity and Security for Vulnerable Communities: Building Partnerships to Fight Poverty
Whitehouse.gov

Ann Crawley with Community Initiatives speaks at Coalition meeting of 14 orgnizations about The Benefit Bank's Free SNAP. Read the entire story from South Carolina's The Index-Journal

Alamance County residents can now get screened and apply for benefits ranging from student loans to food stamps at two locations in Burlington.
Known as The Benefit Bank of North Carolina, the service is currently offered at the Women’s Resource Center and the county Department of Social Services in Burlington, said Linda Allison, assistant DSS director. "We launched this on May 17," Allison said. Read the entire story from
TheTimesNews.com.

Preparing Returns with TBB
The Philadelphia Inquirer
A volunteer with The Benefit Bank site, St. Catherine Laboure Clinic, helps a tax filer get better results than the tax filer expected. philly.com

The task force has selected the following focus areas: reviewing laws and regulations to suggest improvements to federal programs for the poor and improving eligible Americans' access to government benefits.

For example, the task force is considering recommending programs modeled after The Benefit Bank, a centralized, Web-based program that serves as a "one-stop-shop" resource for people with low and moderate-level incomes to apply for and receive food stamps, Medicaid and tax credits.
Read more about this on the Pew Forum web site.
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=432

Free Tax Prep: January 26, 2009

:Channel 4 Interview

By Denise Yost
Managing Editor, nbc4i.com
Published: January 26, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio—The economy is forcing many who never thought they would need assistance scrambling for help.

Groups making up Ohio Benefit Bank are able to link consumers with the right service—even tax preparation, NBC 4‘s Marcus Thorpe reported.

Ohio Benefit Bank is a web-based counselor assisted program.

"Individuals trust that in their church communities, they’ve volunteered or got services. We build on that," said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, of Ohio Benefit Bank.

The program helps consumers with services from food and shelter to tax help.

Anamaria Crockett is a single mom. She did the free on-line service last year at OhioFilesFree.com. This year, it’s a face-to-face meeting to try and squeeze the most from her refund.

"It’s tight—really tight. I need work done on my car and help with bills," she said.

With a shrinking economy tightening budgets, every dollar counts. For example, if you get $3,200 back from your taxes, fees from typical programs would bring that number down. The Ohio Benefit Bank charges no fees for those who qualify for the program.

The program has 35 local offices helping with tax preparation.

"They tell us, ‘What you were able to do allowed me to pay debt or get a car,‘" Fugitt said.

The Ohio Benefit Bank is offering a free tax filing day for those who qualify on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at their offices at 51 North High Street, Suite 150.

Call their offices at 614-221-4336 or 800-648-1176 to schedule an appointment.

Daniel Rubin
Daniel Rubin: The returns of preparing returns

By Daniel Rubin

Inquirer Columnist

This time of year, people tend to bring George Davis shopping bags stuffed with statements and receipts and scribbled lists for him to decipher. On Thursday, Joe McGarity brought him a single piece of paper.

The rest was in McGarity's head, which has become startlingly clear.

"I'm two months sober," McGarity said matter-of-factly to the tax preparer as they sat in a Germantown storefront and worked to distill a year's worth of adventure into numbers.

McGarity is 50, a gravestone cutter and handyman with an intense, engaging manner who is trying, as he put it, "to get back on the grid."

The 1099 form that he pushed across the desk toward Davis showed that last year he earned just under $19,000.

For free, Davis does the taxes of patients at the St. Catherine Laboure Clinic, which serves the poor and those without health insurance. He is a retired Lincoln Financial executive who started volunteering three years ago, and he finds himself more and more popular - 40 returns so far this year, and $50,000 in refunds, which makes him a godsend to people like Janet McCall. She wasn't expecting her $300 lagniappe. "He's a great man," she says.

The year before, McGarity had taken what records he had of his earnings and expenses and sent them to the IRS, with the instruction "you figure it out."

How'd that work? I asked.

"I think it worked out to his disadvantage," Davis said. "The IRS isn't Santa Claus."

But Davis might be, with his gold-rimmed glasses worn low on his nose as he plugged figures into a computer program created by Benefit Bank, which seeks to connect the poor to public funds.

"Don't own your house, didn't buy a new car, don't pay alimony or have a student loan," Davis said, more statement than question.

Davis typed, McGarity talked, scribbling notes on a pack of USA Menthols, which McGarity called "my BlacklungBerry." He told how his boss warned that if his drinking interfered with work, he'd be fired. After calling in sick one morning that still felt like the night before, McGarity marched himself into the clinic at Germantown and Rittenhouse. He was worried about chest pains, which turned out to be nothing serious, and the drinking, which was.

There he saw a notice that Davis was available to do taxes for clinic clients. McGarity made an appointment.

For several hours Thursday, they talked, Davis probing for expenses that would lower the man's taxable income. The handyman had had no taxes taken out of his paycheck.

"You're going to owe some money," Davis warned. He kept figuring.

Davis was 62 and retired all of three months from Lincoln Financial, where he was the senior vice president for human resources, when he signed up with a Jesuit-founded program called Ignation Volunteer Corp.

The beauty of Ignation was that it places retirees where they can work part time and have summers off. Didn't turn out that way for Davis.

Three or four days a week, year-round, he drives from Penn Valley to the privately funded clinic, where he has taken over all the paperwork - tracking expenses, paying bills, even procuring a half-million dollars in donated drugs from pharmaceutical companies.

He serves on the boards of Community College of Philadelphia and Philadelphia Futures. This work is more granular, which he appreciates. "I could write a book," he said.

It was time for the bad news. He looked at McGarity. He owed $2,172.

McGarity seemed surprised.

"Oh, sounds good to me," he said.

"Does it? It's better than you thought?"

"Yeah."

Before he left, McGarity dug into the pocket of his khakis and fished out a couple of fives.

"Can I give you $10?"

Davis shook his head firmly.

"No," he said. "My satisfaction is helping out."