By Dave Gatton
September 20, 2010

During a time of slow economic recovery, it's not often that a community can celebrate anything related to taxes, but that is exactly what happened August 2 when Providence Mayor David Cicilline and John Hope Settlement House CEO and President Peter D. Lee announced that the city's residents had received over $3 million in refunds in 2010 through participation in the 9th Annual Providence Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Campaign.

Through the Campaign, over 1,800 tax filers were assisted in tax preparation, qualifying for a host of benefits including the EITC, childcare tax credits, education credits and elderly credits. The John Hope Settlement House was the lead agency in a community-wide coalition of non-profit organizations, banks, the United Way and the Internal Revenue Service, which helped residents take advantage of the refundable tax credit made possible by the EITC program.

"This is a real volunteer effort by so many supporting Providence organizations who understand that the EITC program can play a critical role in helping families become economically self'sufficient in really tough economic times," said Cicilline to over 100 participants at the breakfast. The mayor provided certificates of appreciation to over a dozen community organizations that held outreach programs to help families receive their EITC refund as a part of the campaign.

To celebrate the event and the mayor's broader "Pathway to Opportunity" initiative, the U.S. Conference of Mayors DollarWise Campaign and Bank of America, its founding sponsor, presented the city with a $20,000 grant, which will be used to coordinate various financial education and empowerment programs including Bank On Providence, announced earlier this summer, a prisoner reentry program, the EITC outreach campaign, and other asset building and financial stability initiatives.

"I want to thank the Conference of Mayors and Bank of America for recognizing the hard work that Providence organizations are doing in this field," said Cicilline. "These resources will help us to advance the cause of bringing opportunities to Providence families." Joining in the check presentation was Bank of America Vice President Ellen M. Ruggiano. Bank of America also served as a supporter of the Providence EITC Campaign and the city's other financial education programs.

Providence is the 16th city to receive a DollarWise Innovations Grant to promote financial education through the Conference of Mayors financial education campaign. Previous recent winners include San Francisco, Seattle, Omaha, and Denver.