Helping Hands

Couple Gives Back to Community

Jim Gutzwiller feels the tax season crunch. For the last 17 years, the retired engineer has volunteered to prepare returns for AARP members.

“My wife, Nancy, saw an ad in the AARP magazine and said, ‘Hey, you would be good at this,’” Jim said.

For 10 years, Jim spent two days weekly at Bedford Central Library helping members with tax returns. He completed four or five a day.

“I was doing my own taxes so I didn’t feel like it was going to be a big step,” Jim said.

He faced a learning curve when he started preparing other returns. “There are alot of things you don’t think about when you do your own taxes, but when youhave to do other people’s taxes, there are a lot of different things that are going on.”

For the last seven years, Jim, who lives in a Lakeside Cottage, has helped Summit residents through the AARP program. AARP provides a work computer and The Summit provides a hotspot to keep data secure.

Jim prepares returns at The Summit and another volunteer at Bedford Library double checks his work. After reviewing the return with the client, Jim files both state and federal returns electronically.

“It’s a completely free program,” he said. “It’s something I feel like I can do and it’s useful.”

The AARP program begins taking reservations in January. For more information,visit aarp.org/money/taxes/aarp-taxaide.

Jim’s wife, Nancy, has been shelving library books since fourth grade. She and her twin sister, Jane, worked at their library outside Boston.The identical twins were known as “Jancy” at the library. “If you didn’t have one of us in the library, you had the other one and the job got done,” she said. “They couldn’t tell us apart anyway.”

After the couple moved to The Summit, Nancy joined the Library Committee.She shelves books in The Summit libraries.

While shelving a few books in Assisted Living, Nancy spots one she hasn’t read yet. “This is why it can take a little longer to work,” she said, thumbing through the pages.

She remembers shelving books outside Boston with Jane. Nancy worked at the library until she got married and left Massachusetts. Nancy worked in technical services for libraries over the years, including nearly 12 years in Bedford.