Business and Technology Education teacher Lydia Nelson knows what coaches go through when the seniors on their teams graduate.  She has seen members of her AARP/Tax Aide program graduate before,  but this year, she will lose three out of four volunteers who have mastered the annual 60-hour training course and passed a certification exam to qualify as tax preparation assistants with the national program which helps low-income and elderly clients. But for now, the program is back in full swing.

The small group of Whitman-Hanson Regional High School students are the only school-based group certified by the national AARP/Tax Aide program.

“You can’t be afraid of a challenge,” Nelson said of the project. “It might intimidate you — and I told the kids it intimidated me for years. We have a healthy respect for that intimidation.”

That is true for the clients, as well, Nelson said explaining that many of them have not had an easy time of  it in the past, financially.

“Our motivation is to try to do the right thing and help people,” Nelson said. The service is free to those who qualify.

As she spoke on Friday, senior Kyle Kane was returning one of eight phone calls requesting one of the weekday appointments scheduled between 1-5 p.m. He outlined what tax-related documents the client needed to bring as he scheduled their session.

Kane and fellow senior Alex Winnett are return volunteers. For senior Karen Dempsey and junior Thomas Lombardo, this is their first year with the program. Both took an independent study course with Nelson to prepare.

“You pretty much have to take the same course again because the tax law changes every year,” Winnett said. “It’s an entirely different test and new publications.”

Dempsey is considering college studies in business, health care or biology. Kane is planning a business major in college and Winnett plans to study medicine. Lombardo also has an interest in business and is a member of the school’s DECA program.

“It’s difficult and time-consuming,” Dempsey said, but all agreed that the reward of helping others makes the investment of time worth it. “It sounded interesting and it sounded like a good thing to do for the community.”

Kane echoed the importance of giving back.

“Even though it’s a lot of hard work you make people’s lives easier,” he said.

Lombardo said he does it because he can and likes helping people.

“If I’m able to, why shouldn’t I,” he said. “If I’m able to make the world a better place somehow, why shouldn’t I?”

“I like this program because it gives me the opportunity to apply knowledge that I’ve learned,” Winnett said. “Just the feeling to get to say, ‘I know this and I know how to do it.’ I enjoy it.”

All the students who are approached to take part in the program have problem-solving, math skills and an ability to process numbers as well as a willingness to look for the answers to clients’ questions or problems.

“They’re a good group of kids,” Nelson said. “And that’s the way it’s been.”

Nelson also takes the training each year. This is her third year offering the service to the public. TaxAide has a 95-percent preparation-without-an-audit rate nationwide and support through the AARP.

“We serve the low-to-middle income residents of the area communities — they don’t have to be Whitman and Hanson,” Nelson said. The have also prepared returns for residents of Abington, the Brigewaters, Brockton, Hanover and Pembroke among others.

The students train extensively on Circuit Breaker — for people 65 or older who either rent or own their home, takes into consideration how much they pay in rent or real estate taxes and half of their utilties — to assist elderly clients, Winnett explained. But anyone, low-to-middle income, is eligible so long as they don’t have issues on the out-of-scope list such as foreclosres, complicated investments, royalty or cross-border income or own property out of the state or country. The students train and test on those issues, but those are not the type of clients with which a free service for the low income and elderly should be dealing, Nelson said

“There’s  plenty of work for all of us,” she said of other tax-prep services.

The appointment-only service has been in operation for about two weeks this year, with about a dozen clients served already. To schedule an appointment, call 781-618-7155.