Stan Tarr was listening to National Public Radio when the director of the Peace Corps was interviewed and described a need for volunteers of Tarr's exact qualifications. So Tarr, 72, applied. He was accepted and became the Peace Corps' oldest member in the Czech Republic
Volunteer basks in opportunities in Rockford
Stan Tarr is feeling a bit guilty. He's 82 years old and doing exactly as he pleases -- volunteering 18 hours a week.
He sees it almost as cheating, he says, since he gets more out of volunteer work than he thinks he gives. And so he asks himself, "Aren't you a selfish person?"
But he also tells himself he wouldn't want to do anything other than what he's doing right now. "There's sometimes I think as a result of being a volunteer I have the best job in the world," he says. "I couldn't ask for anything more."
This part-time, unpaid career is what brought Tarr to this community. When the retired Chicago businessman and former instructor at DePaul University was planning a move, he considered several communities. He settled on Rockford and moved here in 2000 because he looked in the Register Star and saw a weekly listing of volunteer opportunities, indicating to Tarr he would have plenty to choose from, plenty to do.
Since then, he's paid bills for Habitat for Humanity, counseled hopeful entrepreneurs through SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), worked in the jail with inmates and showed seniors how to prepare tax returns. He's on boards and committees, and has simply helped out about a dozen local agencies.
"He's involved throughout the whole community," says Peter Salm, assistant director of nutrition at Lifescape Community Services.
Tarr, characteristically, turns it back around. "It's a wonderful volunteer town," he says.
Tarr began and ended his career in Chicago. He worked as a buyer for Marshall Field's and Montgomery Ward, became a certified public accountant "so they would listen to a marketing person" and then continued on the business track -- with an M.B.A. and as a certified management accountant -- even as he started a teaching career at DePaul, writing textbooks along the way.
He never married, although he would have liked to. "I say travel is my compensation for being single," he says, adding that he's been to 58 countries.
As his career wound down, Tarr got interested in volunteering and offered free consultations to nonprofit organizations. "My life became more interesting when I retired," Tarr says.
He moved from Chicago to his second home on a farm in Lee County, planning to immerse himself in volunteer work but was instead disappointed by the lack of opportunities.
He then helped seniors manage their finances.
A few years later, he was listening to National Public Radio when the director of the Peace Corps was interviewed and described a need for volunteers of Tarr's exact qualifications. So Tarr, 72, applied. He was accepted and became the Peace Corps' oldest member in the Czech Republic. His sisters, both of whom had been to the Czech Republic, supported him entirely. Others thought otherwise.
"Some of my cousins wondered if I had lost my mind," Tarr says.
For two years, Tarr taught economic courses at three Czech universities. "It wasn't easy," he says. "It wasn't fun. But it was interesting."
His cultural sensibilities were affronted. The country, a recent convert from communism, had suffered overemployment during the Old Guard, breeding what Tarr saw as a weak work ethic. He taught students who seemed unwilling to try very hard.
Also under communism, the people had grown to help each other against Big Brother, Tarr says. So it had become socially unacceptable for people in positions like Tarr's to not help students cheat if they asked.
After Tarr returned to the States, he made his move to Rockford. Here, he found a market for his desires and his skills.
"I feel there's a built-in reward system," Tarr says of volunteering. "I have a skill. Sometimes these skills are mundane. But I have these skills and people need them, and I get pleasure out of helping people." For all this, he sometimes feels guilty.
This week, Tarr takes his ambivalence and his skills to his peers. This is his fourth consecutive year volunteering with Tax-Aide Counseling for the Elderly, a program through the IRS and AARP; Tarr not only helps seniors fill out their tax forms, he serves as an instructor and trains other volunteers as tax counselors.
During the final class, Tarr went over the volunteers' tests for certification, reading off the correct answers. "It's kind of interesting," he told the class, "when we made mistakes, we made mistakes in the wage-earner area. And we seldom have any wage earners that we deal with."
His position has given Tarr insight into the economics of Rockford residents. "There are a lot of people that are just barely making it," he says. "There are many people in need in the elderly community." He has seen supplemental incomes as low as $6,000; he frequently sees others living on annual Social Security payments of $9,000.
Tarr remembers a time when tax forms were simpler and when they signified something else. In the Depression, he says, workers didn't have to pay income taxes or fill out tax forms unless their income exceeded $3,000. He remembers people bragging that they had to pay income taxes. (Because work was scarce in his youth, Tarr didn't get a job until 1940; he worked at a hamburger joint washing dishes for 25 cents an hour.)
Now Tarr's calls have started again. Fellow residents at Wesley Willows are asking Tarr if he will again offer tax aid. Of course, he tells them, and admits he's developed a following.
"You can tell that they are lost," he says. "They don't understand how the system works. ... I'm able to help them, and that's a good feeling."
He continues to list all his own benefits from volunteering: meeting people of all ages, understanding life situations he has never encountered and being exposed to what is happening in Rockford.
When asked what he would do if he wasn't volunteering, Tarr says that he would die.
But neither will likely happen anytime soon, as Tarr isn't planning to retire from his volunteer career. And his health is excellent. Tarr holds records in the city's Senior Olympics for lap swimming.
Contact: areese@rockford.gannett.com; 815-987-1356
