On Jan. 19 during the Martin Luther King Day of Service, you can learn how to help low income families find a few extra dollars by availing themselves of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

As part of the Day of Service, the Campaign for Working Families and the Center for Social Policy and Community Development will join forces to provide training to anyone interested in learning how to prepare taxes, said Elly Porter Webb, volunteer coordinator.

Once the volunteers are trained, they will be Internal Revenue Service certified and will be assigned to the various Campaign for Working Families sites around the city of Philadelphia, Webb said. Once there, these tax preparers will try and help low-income families get the benefit they are entitled to by preparing their income taxes for free, she said.

“The whole reason we do this is to provide an alternative to expensive tax time

services,” Webb said. “We want everyone who is eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit to receive it, without getting ripped off,” she said.

The Campaign for Working Families is looking for 500 volunteers to help them prepare the 13,000 tax returns that the organization estimates it will do this year, Webb said.

Taxes will be prepared near Temple University’s Main Campus at the OIC Building, 1231 N. Broad St., fifth floor, from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday and on Saturdays at the Career Link building, 990 Spring Garden St., from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

If you are interested in training as a volunteer, please call Webb at 215-851-1759. If you would like your taxes done, contact the Campaign for Working Families beginning January 12 at 215-686-2599 or go to the campaign’s web site, www.phillyfreetaxes.org.

The tax preparation training is one aspect of the 14th Annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service organized by Philadelphia-area non-profit organization Global Citizen and hosted by Temple University at the Liacouras Center. The event will launch MLK 365, a program designed to stimulate year-round civic engagement and volunteerism in areas such as literacy, homelessness, poverty, sub-standard housing, bridging the digital divide, the environment, energy and healthcare.