Take to the streets. The final tax push is on until the IRS deadline of April 15th. For the last couple days 3 team members and myself have been driving the van around Chicago. We are delivering information about the Tax Assistance Program to non-profits like libraries and career training centers.

Getting fitted for fire boots tomorrow. Check out this cool (I should say HOT) article.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4520560,00.html

3 year anniversary of the Iraq war.





-Flag dancers.



-Some random people gave us some cool signs.

More save Americorps NCCC articles:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11824180/site/newsweek/from/ET/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/opinion/14tue3.html?ex=1143003600&en=acdf82e529cc3268&ei=5070&emc=eta1

This is an office email I received that explains one reason we are doing taxes for low income people.

I ran across this article concerning H&R Block and a fraud case currently against them. I know that many of the clients you serve have used tax prep agencies like this before finding out about the Tax Assistance Programs, so I thought that I would send you the link. Your teams may want to read over it and discuss the implications of for-profit agencies like H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt in terms of how these agencies relate to the working poor who need instant tax refunds.

Article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11839807/

Chicago Board of Trade. We took a tour of the CBOT today. A trader was kind enough to show us around the floor and explain the process of trading commodities.



Traditional trading floor - that means hands flying around and traders yelling at each other.



Electronic trading floor - much more subdued

St. Patrick's Day! The city of Chicago celebrates for a full week and kicked off the festivities with a parade and dying the river green. We walk around Navy Pier and checked out the view from the top of the John Hancock building. The Wrigleyville area where I live has been a sea of drunken green t-shirts.



Playing with the sculptures at Navy Pier



The river dyed with fluorescein



This thing is cool

Day off. Used this time to explore the Chicago L train stop. It dropped us off near Michigan Ave in a area known as the Magnificent Mile. It wasn't too magnificent today since it was 20 degrees and snowing with a nice westward wind. However, we enjoyed a brisk walk in Tiffany's, Saks and Armani country.