Celebrating our amazing Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) volunteers!

May 8, 2024

Stroudsburg, PA- This year, we celebrated another successful year of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. This program offers services to individuals and families with low-to-moderate income who are eligible for tax credits. Volunteers are trained to become IRS-certified and work diligently to get the tax refunds each person deserves.

Thanks to our dedicated VITA volunteers, coordinators, and staff, 900 volunteer hours, an in-kind value of more than $30,141. With their support we were able to provide virtual assistance, drop off and in person tax filing. To date, we served approximately 305 families yielding $261,000 in tax refunds and saving taxpayers filing fees of $98,515!

Pocono Mountains United Way threw not one, but two VITA Recognition events to accommodate everyone’s schedules. We kicked things off with a fabulous Luncheon on Thursday, April 11th at the Willowtree Inn Restaurant in Stroudsburg, and kept the party going with a fantastic dinner on Tuesday, April 16th at Derailed Taphouse in East Stroudsburg. These events were our chance to give major props to our amazing volunteers, community partners, sponsors, and staff for all their hard work and dedication.

Thank you to our community partners who hosted our VITA sites:

• Eastern Monroe Public Library
• Middle Smithfield Township
• East Stroudsburg University
• Kemp Library | East Stroudsburg University

The Internal Revenue Service has been a key partner of the VITA program. Their partnership has allowed us to be able to provide free, confidential, and secure preparation and e-filing of tax returns to qualified taxpayers. PA 211 is another proud partner of VITA programs across the state. We greatly appreciate Ed Jones, VITA Program Manager, for his ongoing support to VITA staff and volunteers throughout the tax season.

This year, we also wanted to recognize our ESU Interns! We applaud their determination and are grateful for hard-working volunteers like them.

Although tax season has come and gone, additional financial resource information is always available online at unitedway.org/myfreetaxes.

We look forward to another year of the VITA program in 2025 where we can continue to be a valuable resource to our community.

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For more information, press only: marketing@poconounitedway.org