Service-Learning Efforts of TCB Students Featured on Eyewitness News

Jennifer Maizel - April 14, 2009

Under the guidance of Accounting Professor Dr. Nina Dorata, students in the Peter J. Tobin College of Business have volunteered as tax preparers for the underserved in the Bedford-Stuyvesant community during this tax season. Since beginning their work in February, the nearly 60 volunteer students have accrued approximately $1,000,000 in state, federal and local tax returns. With the tax deadline approaching, all of the volunteers at Bread & Life participating in the IRS-sponsored Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program have secured just under $2,000,000 for their clients.

Eyewitness News (WABC) education reporter Art McFarland visited St. John’s University’s Queens campus and the Bread & Life facility in Brooklyn to meet Dr. Dorata, five TCB student volunteers and the clients who have been served through this program. The initiative was featured on Eyewitness News’ broadcasts on Thursday, April 8 and again on Easter Sunday.

Watch the Eyewitness News report

This Academic Service Learning initiative provides hands-on experience to students enrolled in the Department of Accounting and Taxation. Rev. James J. Maher, C.M., Vice President for Student Affairs and Executive Director of the Vincentian Institute for Social Action (VISA) at St. John’s spoke of the importance of the program to both the students and the clients at Bread & Life.

"They're growing and learning academically, and they're making a great impact on the lives of people who desperately need those services," he said.

VISA was launched by the University to more visibly embed St. John’s Catholic and Vincentian mission into the educational experience of its students. It provides an organizational focus for a variety of new and ongoing programs through which faculty and students can work together to explore the causes of and develop solutions for poverty and social injustice throughout the world.