50+ Lifestyles

RSVP: Lead With Experience

By Bill Sedlacek
Retired and Senior Volunteer Program of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois

Jon Cook, RSVP and VITA Volunteer

Anyone with a Hollywood inspired image of an Army Infantry Officer as a one-dimensional tough guy has not met Jon Cook. Jon, a graduate of Ohio State and their ROTC program, is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who served 20 years, and may be tough but is certainly not one dimensional.

It would be impossible to fully address his life accomplishments and volunteer service in the space we have here. But, I’ll try, and as you can see from what I can fit into this space, he has accomplished a lot in his life and is not done yet.

After retirement from the Army, Jon and his wife Marcia, who was originally from Moline, settled here. Marcia joined the RSVP staff, and Jon then began another 20 plus year career as a civilian with the Army; first as a contractor and then as a government employee in Family Services at Rock Island Arsenal. While there, Jon assisted military spouses with job searches, helped military personnel transition to civilian life and provided financial counseling. Currently he is teaching writing intensive Management courses as an adjutant instructor at St. Ambrose University. He describes the course as one developed after requests from local employers who wanted to ensure their employees could present written presentations as well as they prepare verbal ones. This spring, he will begin teaching an Organization Theory and Behavior class at St. Ambrose as a regular staff instructor.

Somehow, he has managed to interweave a variety of volunteer activities into his life. He works with the Financial Literacy Group, QCDollarwise,  providing financial instruction and counseling through local schools, community centers and the Davenport Police. In another effort related to financial literacy, he works with the Davenport Police providing renters with budgeting advice and assistance. He is a also an active member of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), which has various programs supporting current military and veterans. Related to his AUSA activities, he is working on the first Area Veterans Conference which will be hosted by St.Ambrose on February 25. This conference is sponsored by the five local area colleges and will provide transition assistance and information on education opportunities, as well as other assistance for veterans.

Despite his full schedule, Jon has also managed to focus on the United Way/AARP Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which provides free federal and state income tax preparation for low income wage earners, the elderly and the military. Knowing what a burden the cost of for-profit tax preparation can be for folks in these groups, I’d say it is one of the most beneficial programs in this area. VITA uses “TaxWise,” an automated application provided by the IRS. While the program is income limited, their website, http://unitedwayqc.org/resources/free-taxpreparation states that the upper limit is $57,000 and encourages you to call (563) 355-9900 to see if you qualify. The program, which starts in the 3rd week of January and goes until the end of April, saved their clients an estimated $744,000 in preparation fees last year and returned an average refund of $1,400 per return for a refunded total of $6.2 million dollars.

This most worthy program is in need of volunteers, and you do not have to be a trained tax filer to help. They also need people to remind clients of their appointments, greeters who do an initial intake interview to check the clients documents and information to make sure that the preparers have all the information they need, and of course, the tax preparers. I would really encourage anyone to volunteer for this most important program by  calling RSVP at (309) 793-4425 or email rsvp@wiaaa.org.