Financial Justice
C HRISTINA TALARCZYK FIRST JOINED ACORN IN 2003,
ACORN LEADER IN ACTION
after she moved from Minnesota to San Antonio’s Las
Lomas neighborhood where she noticed that high-speed
traffic and a lack of streetlights made the streets danger-
ous. ACORN’s organizer came to her house, and with the
hope of improving neighborhood safety, Christina became
one of the first members of San Antonio’s fourth neighbor-
hood chapter, Las Lomas ACORN. office with a Dateline producer
With other ACORN who had a camera hidden in his
members Christina organized a sunglasses. The tax prepara-
Christina candle-light vigil to call attention
to her neighborhood’s lack of
tion employees were caught on
camera as they tried to convince
Talarczyk streetlights and speed bumps.
Local TV stations covered
Christina to take out a high-inter-
est RAL. “The Jackson Hewitt
San Antonio, TX the vigil and were able to film an employee said it takes the IRS
accident that was all too typical too long to process a refund, and
for Christina’s neighborhood. made RALs seem so much faster,”
“Just as the local TV station was Christina explains. “It was surreal
Christina interviewing a woman at the to see myself on TV. I had family
introduced millions vigil, a little boy went out into members calling from Minnesota
the street and a speeding driver and New Mexico to tell me they’d
of primetime had to slam on his brakes,” says seen it.”
television viewers Christina. The woman being In 2005, Christina continued
interviewed was the boy’s her work on RALs and helped
to RAL scams when mother, and the incident found a promote ACORN’s free tax prep-
she played an place on the evening news. aration services. She and other
Next Christina helped citi- members of her ACORN crew
undercover role zens take part in ACORN’s com- visited the offices of tax prepara-
prehensive financial justice ini-
in a segment of tiatives designed to help people
tion companies approximately
twenty times. “We’d hand out
Dateline, NBC’s keep more of their hard-earned flyers to people walking into the
money. Working with ACORN, tax prep offices and when they
Emmy-winning Christina helped promote the realized ACORN could prepare
investigative news Earned Income Tax Credit, taxes for free, they would leave,”
expose the high cost of Refund Christina says. The local media
program. Anticipation Loans (RALs), and covered the protests and when
provide free tax preparation ser- phone numbers for the ACORN
vices. In March 2004, Christina office were broadcast on TV,
introduced millions of primetime ACORN received calls from many
television viewers to RAL scams interested people who couldn’t
when she played an undercover believe they could have their
role in a segment of Dateline, taxes done for free. Christina’s
NBC’s Emmy-winning investiga- hard work paid off and in 2005
tive news program. San Antonio ACORN filed close
Pretending to be a naive tax to 2,000 returns, the most returns
preparation customer, Christina filed by any independent VITA
walked into a Jackson Hewitt site in the city.
Page 16 ACORN 2005 Annual Report Organizing Communities...