Alan Mauldin
MOULTRIE — A community collaborative will fight poverty by putting into action the Chinese proverb that teaching people to fish produces lifetime results.
Specifically, the group will teach financial planning, provide free income-tax preparation and filing, and operate a drop-out prevention program targeting at-risk ninth graders.
The effort was made possible by a $5,000 Communities of Opportunity grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. As a community of opportunity, the county also will be in line for other services and benefits, including technical assistance from DCA and other state agencies, help in finding additional monetary sources, and access to state loans at reduced rates.
DCA Commissioner Mike Beatty attended the Friday signing of grant documents.
Local matching for the grant will come in the form of $2,500 in in-kind contributions from Colquitt County Family Connection, which is administering the grant, and $1,250 each from Colquitt County Commission and Moultrie City Council.
With the grant the collaborative should be able to provide no-cost tax preparation assistance to 100 or more individuals and families, with the drop-out program likely serving 30 to 40 students, said Denise Bell, community services director for Southwest Georgia Community Action Council.
While tax preparation and drop-out prevention would not seem to be a match, Bell said both should help in alleviating poverty.
A study done with the University of Georgia through its Archway to Excellence program, and a report prepared by Duke University, identified four factors that can reduce poverty, Bell said. Those are education and employment, building financial assets through financial literacy, family support such as child care and transportation, and health-related issues.
Federal and state tax preparation and filing will allow those who qualify to receive free preparation and also avoid refund anticipation loans that can come at a high price, Bell said.
“It’s a way to get refunds to them without significantly high interest loans that are out there,” she said.
Tax preparation assistance will be offered in February 2010 and February 2011.
Local banks will deliver the financial education, including budgeting and credit-building.
“The goals are to educate the public about tax credits, such as earned income tax credit, and to prevent (people) from turning to payday loans, which tend to be high-interest and burdensome,” said Lori Glenn, Family Connection executive director.
Local college students will be trained in tax preparation through the Internal Revenue Service Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, Glenn said. University of Georgia students trained under that program also will work here to earn course credits.
The drop-out prevention program will team up Colquitt County Schools Achievement Center with Colquitt County Arts Center and the YMCA. Those organizations will offer enrichment classes to at-risk students during the day that are aligned to state curriculum standards, Glenn said.
“The enrichment classes will be designed to enhance learning, encourage leadership and responsibility, broaden their outlook on life and ultimately keep these students in school,” she said.
After the ceremony Friday, Beatty said that the Communities of Opportunities program allows local decision-makers to design and implement strategies that they think are the best fit.
“We think this approach is better,” he said. “The local folks decide, and we help them.”
He told the audience, which included representatives from the city and county, YMCA, United Way, Colquitt County School Board, and Southwest Georgia Regional Development Center, that out of 274 persistent poverty counties in the U.S., 91 are in Georgia.
“What Communities of Opportunity is about is really getting a laser and getting focused,” he said. “This is a 10-year program, maybe a 20-year program.”
