Celebration

Twice a year - before and after tax season - the groups I work with to do taxes - mainly for working-class people - celebrate at the Metro United Way (with the usual good food and this time a super hero theme, but not music). This past tax season more than a dozen partners - including a community center in Portland, from where Stephanie and I watched the barge in trouble Sunday afternoon, and a new partner involving a church friend and a Metro Council member, in SW Jefferson County - near where the seafood restaurant we ate at Sunday - and also a new partner in neighboring Shelby County - worked with volunteers like me to do tax returns for nearly 8,000 individuals and families, netting them $3.5 million in Earned Income Tax Credit credits and $8 million in refunds (not counting the Fiscal Stimulus refunds they'll also get). On hand was a big supporter of the program, Mayor Abramson (pictured above middle with Louisville Asset Building Coalition director Eric Saito), my Portland Promise Center trainer, and staffpeople and volunteers (including Bellarmine students0 I worked with at the Presbyterian Community Center. Good work, LABC and PCC! (The mayor took off after the awards, so I didn't get to press about his proposal to close the two public swimming pools near the Presbyterian Community Center and the Metro United Way, in Shelby Park and Irish Hill (that my Phoenix Hill Neighborhood Association colleagues are trying to fight), though a man was there from the Shelby Park neighborhood group who defended the proposal somewhat.