Community Service

The Cabinet is fully engaged in the community aspect of the profession. What community aspect? This year, the Cabinet will largely focus on financial literacy. Young CPAs are perfect for helping the general public in this area by explaining things like budgets, cash flow, savings, and debt management. To learn more about ways to participate, please contact John Mollohan, chair of the Community Service subcommittee, or staff member Sonya Guthrie.

The cabinet has also worked with local food drives, organized food at food banks, and helped build homes for families in need through Habitat for Humanity.

Young CPAs in the Classoom

The Masters of Accounting (MAC) curriculum at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is designed to provide an understanding of accounting and business practices that many graduates face when they enter the professional accounting and business worlds. A large part of that curriculum is learning the importance of financial literacy.  

The Young CPAs have teamed up with NCSU’s MAC program in a financial literacy effort. This alliance includes CPA volunteers from the Triangle area who act as mentors to students during the course of this program. Students participating in the curriculum will be given various projects throughout the semester to increase their community’s financial literacy awareness. The mentors guide them as they identify ways to reach out into their community, including campus. At the end of the program, MAC students will gain a better sense of the importance of financial literacy and how they can help make a lifelong difference in the lives of others. 

If you are interested in starting a similar program at your school, contact Sonya Guthrie.

Financial Literacy on the Gulf Coast

In November 2007, a group of our own young CPAs teamed up with a few young CPAs from Louisiana for the first-ever Gulf Coast service camp in New Orleans. There, they provided free consultations to small business owners throughout the city. Additionally, they hosted group seminars on starting a small business, QuickBooks, and general financial literacy. The trip was an amazing success story of what happens when CPAs apply their “ordinary” skills to achieve extraordinary objectives. Read more about the trip in this Interim Report article. After the success of the first trip, additional groups of CPAs went on three more trips. All were equally successful.