AARP Tax-Aide District 8 Helps Severna Park Residents

AARP’s Tax-Aide is a national program where volunteer counselors help senior citizens as well as anyone seeking no-cost tax services, regardless of age, prepare their yearly returns. In 2025, 28,000 national volunteers helped secure nearly $1.7 billion in returns for filers. Locally, in Queen Anne’s and Anne Arundel counties, Tax-Aide District 8 handled over 3,400 returns, earning more than $300,000 in refunds. Jay Hessey, District 8’s local coordinator, and Jane Hickey, shift coordinator, shared details about their local operation, run out of the Severna Park Library.

They were effusive about how volunteers were the backbone of their work. The volunteer counselors come from various backgrounds. For example, Hessey was trained as an engineer before he retired, and while Hickey worked in college financial aid previously, her degree is in English literature. However, with the appropriate training, their volunteer counselors are ready to help with returns.

Hickey explained, “It’s a long process to train, and some people find it intimidating at first. But we have group classes as well and self-study at home. We can also pair new volunteers 1:1 with more experienced counselors for training. It’s how they get prepared to be certified by Tax-Aide before working with filers.”

Hessey echoed that sentiment, stating, “We could put out more tables at our location, but we stay the size that we are because of the number of volunteer counselors we have so we maintain quality.”

While the counselors might be the main drivers of District 8’s operations, Tax-Aide’s services are a collaborative process. “We have 75-minute sessions,” Hessey explained. “We might not get everything done in one session, but we try. Filers bring last year’s returns and their financial information. They might expect to hand it off to the counselors to put into the computer program, but we have the filers sit with the counselors and go through everything together.”

Besides successfully securing returns, Tax-Aide’s coordinators find personal satisfaction in their work. Hickey was already helping her mother with her taxes and expanded to working with Tax-Aide. As she noted, while some people find the process intimidating, “taxes don’t scare me none.”

Both Hickey and Hessey take pride in saving people money. These coordinators know that a few hundred dollars saved can be the difference between some filers having enough money for medications or other needs and falling short instead.

And with over 108 appointments completed before the end of February 2026, Tax-Aide District 8 is already fulfilling its mission to help Severna Park residents.

If you are interested in volunteering, you can email District 8 at jay4taxprep@gmail.com or sign up for training at www.sites.google.com/view/anne-arundel-taxaide. Similarly, if you’d like to meet with AARP Tax-Aide for help with filing, its site has intake sheet links in both English and Spanish.