Catholic Charities of San Jose

October 2005

It started with a teacher bringing some students over from Santa Clara University to prepare taxes for low-income people. It grew into a program managed by Catholic Charities of San Jose at four sites which served 595 clients and brought back $617,000 in refunds in the first year of its expansion.

Catholic Charities of San Jose is a large organization with a $15 million budget and staff of about 250 running diverse programs throughout the county. When they saw the taxpayer response to the work of the students, they crafted a grant application and sent it off to the Knight Foundation, which is interested in improving the economic security of low-income families. The Foundation responded with a $900,000 grant spread over five years for free tax preparation services for low-income families in Vietnamese- and Spanish-speaking communities in San Jose and Gilroy.

Once it received the grant, Catholic Charities had to hire staff and get the program started from scratch. It sent program staff to the National Community Tax Coalition’s 2004 Fall Training in Chicago, and received ongoing Technical Assistance from the Coalition. Even with this late start to preparation, 100 volunteers were trained by the SPEC office of the IRS.

Volunteers at the Recognition Day

Most of the 60-70 active volunteers last season spoke either Spanish or Vietnamese as well as English. The majority of clients are Spanish-speaking, so Spanish-speaking preparers and volunteer translators were an important part of the program’s effectiveness. Volunteers came from the University, from corporations, and the community. Libraba Hilario was participating in a state assistance program which offered volunteer opportunities. When she expressed interest in tax preparation, she was assigned to Catholic Charities. She was very happy helping the clients and participating in the staff group. When one of the initial program staff left mid-season, Librara became a “super-volunteer,” assisting with preparations in the office. Even after the season was over, clients still came in for help, and Librara helped to coordinate with another volunteer who assists them with previous year returns (back to 2002).

For tax preparation sites, the program enlisted a senior center, a Head Start center, and a local Community Center. Each of the three satellite sites was open for two hours in the evening on different days, and the main Catholic Charities office was open on two weekends.

For outreach, the program used flyers, presentations to community organizations, and media releases. They succeeded in having a story run on Spanish-language TV and in a Spanish-language newspaper.

Because this was their first funded tax season, they invited all staff of Catholic Charities to a pre-season “dry run” where they could have their taxes prepared, enabling the program to test its procedures and refine them before opening to the public.

In a survey at the end of the tax season, the majority of clients and volunteers expressed satisfaction. Many volunteers expressed high interest in doing it again. Clients noted that they increased their tax refunds.

Next year, Catholic Charities intends to use the same model. Observing that Saturday was a popular day, they may schedule site hours accordingly. It was also obvious that people prefer evening hours on weekdays. With time to plan over the summer, they intend to start recruitment and training of volunteers in October.

Arely Valeriano, one of the program staff, regards the venture as very successful, and is keen to see it run again. “It was a great experience, being able to help clients. You can sense their gratitude and see a smile comes up.”

Written by Don Wedd, based on information from Libraba Hilario, Minh Hoang Pham, Arely Valeriano, and Besem Obenson of Catholic Charities.