Skip to content

Coffee with: Jerry Starck calling time on a volunteer career

J erry Starck is retiring … again.
Jerry Starck
Jerry Starck, 95, has been volunteering with the CRA since 1987, preparing income tax statements for seniors, the unemployed, and those with low incomes.

Jerry Starck is retiring … again.

The soon-to-be 95-year-old, former accountant is calling it quits on his volunteer job that he’s had for 29 years, working for Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) preparing income tax statements for seniors, the unemployed, and those with low incomes.

“When you can’t do your best anymore, it’s time to stop,” says Starck, a resident at the Ukrainian Community Society Of Ivan Franko retirement home, a place he’s lived for the past 22 years.

Starck says he was semi-retired and living in Ladner when he spied an ad in the newspaper calling for CRA volunteers.

“That was 1987 and I’ve stuck with them since then,” says the former 10-handicap golfer and avid curler who recently gave up driving because his health had taken a downturn — another reason why he has decided to stop the number crunching at tax time.

“The doctors, they found some spots on my left lung. It’s cancer,” he says matter-of-factly, sitting in the living room of his neatly maintained unit he calls his office, with a big screen TV set to a music channel streaming out 1950s classics, and a desktop computer used mainly for tax preparation.

When he started the tax-filing volunteer work it was all done on paper. Today, it’s mostly on computer.

“I had to go back to school to learn all of that so I could e-file for people,” he says with a smile.  “Doing it electronically, it’s a great advance. It’s all done right, and it’s convenient.”

He started the road to accountancy in high school in Winnipeg — where his family landed from Poland in 1926. He enrolled in a business class and took night school typing and short-hand classes. Later, he put those skills to work as an army clerk during the Second World War — a medical condition kept him from overseas duty.

Nattily attired in a loose-fitting, grey, Ralph Lauren, long-sleeved polo shirt and perfectly creased plaid pants, Starck says during the tax season he’d handle 50 to 60 returns a month. Some were done for people in his building.

Many became friends.

“Oh, yes. I’d get to know them all. I just was happy to do something for someone else.”

With his four children scattered across the country, Starck says the volunteer work gave him purpose.

But did he ever think he’d spend close to three decades volunteering?

“No, but in those days when I first started there weren’t many volunteers. And it helped keep my mind sharp.”

So did the lessons he learned early on as a young, articling accountant with a tough boss who insisted he calculate numbers in his head for a year before touching the adding calculator. 

“That was the best education I ever received.”

But now it’s time for him to push away the keyboard, albeit reluctantly. “I was hoping to do 30 years. I wish I could continue working.”