Congratulations to our 2012 Community Bank Award Winners!

The 2012 Community Bank Award recipients were honored February 21 during ABA's National Conference for Community Bankers in Palm Desert, California.

Categories:

Helping to Achieve Homeownership
Encouraging Volunteerism
Fundraising for Foundations & Local Groups
Improving Financial Literacy
Reaching Out to the Underserved
Building with Habitat for Humanity
Revitalizing Your Community

Helping to Achieve Homeownership

Hancock County Savings Bank
Chester, West Virginia

Hancock County Savings Bank is being honored for its Neighborhood Reinvestment Program, which is a comprehensive initiative committed to revitalizing the City of Weirton's Fourth Ward. Through this program, the bank has worked in concert with community leaders and organizations to rehabilitate homes and make them available to low-to-moderate income families as well as provide preparatory homeownership educational programs.

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Encouraging Volunteerism

First Interstate Bancsystem
Billings, Montana

First Interstate Bancsystem is being honored for their methodical, thorough and unique approach to encouraging volunteerism and helping local nonprofits continue to serve the community. During these challenging economic times, nonprofits have fewer resources and are needed more. First Interstate Bancsystem's program matches charities in need with volunteers based on their professional skills, experience and leadership capabilities to address specific needs of the community. This approach helps nonprofits build and sustain their capacity to bring real solutions to the most pressing social problems.

Florida Gulf Bank
Ft. Myers, Florida

Florida Gulf Bank is being honored for their bank-wide commitment to volunteerism in the community. With nearly 100 percent staff participation, Florida Gulf Bank reached out to their community through 12 separate volunteer-driven initiatives that resulted in reaching and aiding many needs throughout the community.

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Fundraising for Foundations and Local Groups

1st Summit Bank
Johnstown, Pennsylvania

1st Summit Bank is being honored for the 1st Summit Bank Employee Foundation which serves "quality of life" projects in the counties that the bank serves. Recipients include museums, area libraries and playgrounds, to name a few. The Foundation is driven solely by donations from the bank's staff and officers, and is not part of the bank's corporate donations. These funds have provided resources to many community initiatives.

Summit State Bank
Santa Rosa, California

Summit State Bank is being honored for its fundraising initiative to help the drama program of Elsie Allen High School, which serves a low-income area in Santa Rosa. The bank successfully worked with the school to raise funds for a specific project through unique strategies and has since engaged with the school immensely using creative tactics to better the lives of many needy students.

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Improving Financial Literacy

Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank
Orleans, Massachusetts

Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank is being honored for its array of outstanding financial education initiatives to help improve financial literacy for both youth and seniors in the communities it serves. Their initiatives, including a longitudinal study with 8th grade students, after school programs, their Credit for Life programs and seminars for senior citizens have impacted over 3,700 people.

First National Bank Texas
Texas

First National Bank Texas is being honored for its Lemonade Day program, which brought together leaders from three surrounding cities, two school districts and one of our nation's largest military installations, Fort Hood, to help approximately 1,500 students learn the value of money management and entrepreneurship through hands-on learning. This program united the local area in providing financial literacy and resulted in 11 percent of Lemonade Day respondents opening a savings account.

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Reaching Out to the Underserved

BankPlus
Ridgeland, Mississippi

BankPlus is being honored for its CreditPlus program, a unique loan product designed to help improve a person's credit and get consumers on the track to a more sound financial future. This wide-encompassing program that caters to the many Mississippians that are unbanked or underbanked also offers comprehensive financial education programs.

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Building with Habitat for Humanity

Liberty Bank
Middletown, Connecticut

Liberty Bank is being honored for its partnership with Habitat for Humanity to launch a Habitat Re-Store in its community. The Re-Store accepts donated items and resells them for a minimal profit, which is later used to build new Habitat homes. The program benefits the community by reusing donated items, offering lower-income families an opportunity to purchase items at a reduced price, and providing funds to build new Habitat homes.

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Revitalizing Your Community

Bryant Bank of Alabama
Alabama

Bryant Bank of Alabama is being honored for its response to the devastation in Alabama after 63 tornados hit the state one day last April. The bank's staff banded together to assist in its effected communities and rebuild the destroyed areas through manual labor, manning soup kitchens and fundraising phone lines and hosting donation stations, among many other initiatives. The bank volunteers' strong commitment was apparent when water, food and supplies were distributed on foot because roads were still impassable. The staff volunteered over 2,000 hours in two months alone.

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 Questions? Call Kim Michael at 202-663-5203.