Berta Rivera BS '12 is director of the C.A.S.H. Coalition (Creating Assets, Savings and Hope), a community coalition supported by the Empire Justice Center and United Way of Greater Rochester. She first became involved with C.A.S.H. as a volunteer for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program. Now, as one of the youngest minority directors in the nation overseeing such a program, she is responsible for the overall management of C.A.S.H. including strategic planning and budgeting, fund development, volunteer training and management, VITA site operations, financial literacy and asset-building initiatives, and community outreach. Prior to joining C.A.S.H., she was a paralegal in the Foreclosure Prevention program of Empire Justice Center. 
 
The first college graduate in her family, she was inspired to pursue higher education after participating in a Virtual Enterprise Program Fair in Austria as a student representative of the Rochester City School District. She credits good advice from her high school guidance counselors and her parents' unlimited support of her desire to spread her wings and learn for her persistence and success at RIT and beyond. 
 
Berta willingly shares her expertise with others. She has presented at national conferences for the National Community Tax Coalition and the Annual Conference on Financial Education on topics ranging from the recruitment, retention, and management of volunteers to best practices for training and communicating with volunteers and staff; client engagement and customer service to financial coaching. VITA volunteer coordinators and prospective financial coaching program coordinators from agencies across the nation are often referred to Ms. Rivera for advice, training, and technical support. And, in the community, she is an emergency volunteer at Rochester General Hospital, she serves with United Way's Latino Leadership Development program and volunteers for the annual United Way "Day of Giving," and she is a financial literacy high school mentor for Upward Bound.