Meet some of our Team of Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP) Volunteers, Eleanor Doerksen, Carmen Gfrerer, Pat
Kincade, and Corrie Krueger. These committed volunteers have spent the months of March and April actively filing over 400 tax
files for low income members of our community and surrounding areas and we cannot thank them enough for their wonderful
support in helping LSCO offer this program.
Q: How long have you been volunteering with LSCO?
Eleanor: I’ve been preparing tax returns since 2015, maybe 2016.
Carmen: Approximately 1 month.
Pat: I have been doing volunteer income tax for 15 years at LSCO. I have done it professionally in the past and when the opportunity came along to take the training and become a volunteer, I was excited to do so.
Corrie: This is my 2nd year.
Q: What motivates you to be a volunteer?
Eleanor: Volunteering is one way to help others. It also is a benefit for me as it keeps me out in the community, meeting people, using my brain.
Carmen: I understand the benefits for low-income individuals and seniors to have their income taxes completed and access all the income they are eligible for. Having a company do simple tax returns can be very expensive for those on a fixed or limited income. Since I very much enjoy tax preparation, I figured I could give back in this simple way.
Pat: I love the challenge of doing income tax returns.
Corrie: It feeds my soul to volunteer!
Q: What’s your favourite thing about volunteering?
Eleanor: Volunteering helps me feel useful.
Carmen: Knowing I can use my skill to make someone’s life a little bit easier.
Pat: I love the people I meet.
Corrie: It not only feeds my soul, but it helps someone else out.
Q: Who influenced or inspired you to volunteer and/or give back to others?
Eleanor: Another accounting technician with whom I worked at MNP retired a year before I did and started preparing tax returns under
the CVITP at the Norbridge Seniors Centre. She encouraged me to join her. When I retired the following year, I decided that I would also prepare tax returns for low income people, but chose to do so at LSCO.
Carmen: My mother-in-law has always valued community and taught me the importance of giving back. She has a way of lighting up a room and making others feel special and I hope to pass a little of that light on myself.
Pat: There was a bridge player named Jack, who I played bridge with. Jack also did income tax and that is how I learned about the
program and became a registered volunteer. He was always working on returns (paper in those days) during bridge and so I asked
questions about how to become involved.
Corrie: I had an amazing soccer coach in my teens who showed me how fun volunteering was and how much he got out of it. He inspired me by showing how enjoyable it was!
We could not do what we do here at LSCO without our volunteers — These amazing Income Tax volunteers truly make a remarkable difference as they carried us through the income tax season.