Free tax preparation service
WINNSBORO – Fairfield County Library programs offering free services are up and running for the spring. A program that provides free tax preparation help begins this month, and those who wish to participate can now sign up for a time slot. The service is offered on Wednesday evenings from this week through April 10.
“This is the sixth year that we’ve partnered with The Cooperative Ministry in Columbia to offer this free tax service,” says Eric Robinson, director of the Fairfield County Library. “We’re proud and happy that we’ve been able to offer this.”
Appointments for free tax assistance can be scheduled by calling the library at (803) 635-4971. Those who participate must bring their ID, social security card, and tax documents to the appointment, and they must make less than $65,000 a year to qualify for the program. A different program through The Cooperative Ministry, a local nonprofit, exists to assist those making over $65,000 a year.
“We like to offer a variety of services to the citizens of Fairfield County,” Robinson says. “We offer a lot of educational services to the public, and even thought this one’s not necessarily educational, it is something that will benefit the citizens of Fairfield County.”
Free flower and veggie seeds
WINNSBORO – The library’s seed program is offering free flower and vegetable seeds to backyard gardeners.
The seed program, which the library calls its Seed Catalog, is a seed bank contained in a repurposed card catalog, an old filing system that, before the era of computerized databases, contained cards that helped people find books in the library.
“Since we’re a very rural community, we figured this would be a very beneficial program to offer to the community,” Robinson says of the seed program. “We offer both gardening seeds – vegetables and the like – as well as flowers for beautification, and the main rule is to take what you want but, at the end of the growing season, help us replenish the seeds that you’ve taken.”
He says the library also offers basic information on the seeds, including how to plant them, where they grow best, how long before they produce, and growing requirements. This information can be especially helpful given the vastly different growing conditions between Fairfield County’s clay soils and the sandy conditions in nearby parts of Richland County.
The library also accepts donations of seeds to distribute through the seed catalog, an offering that’s in its fourth year in Fairfield County and has also caught on in libraries around the state.
Robinson says that the seed program is also something that he’s personally passionate about.
“This one’s a little near and dear to my heart because my undergrad degree was in horticulture, so it’s a way for me as a library director to be able to incorporate my undergrad degree and love of horticulture,” he says.
“We’re also going to try to have a variety of heirloom variety vegetables for the folks that like to grow the old-timey kind of plants that Grandma used to grow in her garden.”
