Students Help Community Members with Tax Preparation
N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University students participated in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program and helped dozens of people complete their taxes.
Wil Golden from the University of Georgia at Athens, VITA Coordinator for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, works with student volunteer tax preparers to prepare them to help community members.
Sixteen students from all disciplines underwent advanced training and received certification as tax preparers for VITA, according to Devona Dixon, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Services.
The effort was in collaboration with the University of Georgia’s Family Financial Planning program and was funded through the USDA’s Higher Education Challenge Grant program. This initiative blends academic learning with community service.
Along with helping the community, the experience allowed students to deepen their own financial literacy. “They definitely learned how to prepare taxes,” Dixon said.
“Volunteering through VITA was an opportunity to give back to society,” said Elizabeth Acquah, a Food and Nutritional Sciences graduate student who volunteered with the program.
The department partnered with Mount Olivet AME Zion Church to provide the free tax preparation service.
“There is a need for preparation of taxes for international students, so that is something that we are probably going to start looking into for next year,” Dixon said.
Sang Wins Award
Shengmin Sang, Ph.D.
This award is given to an investigator for outstanding research on the safety and efficacy of bioactive compounds for human health. It is supported by the Council for Responsible Nutrition.
Sang is Distinguished Professor of Functional Foods and Human Health at the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis. His research to identify the bioactive components from foods and herbal medicine, and to study their preventive effects on cancer, asthma, and metabolic syndrome has yielded several awards Currently, his lab is studying the bioactive compounds in whole grains (wheat, oat, and barley), ginger, tea (green tea and black tea), apples, soy, and blueberries.
