Celebrating Community Bank Outreach #2 — Feeding Local Families

As we continue to focus on CFIs during community banking month, we wanted to first offer our deepest sympathy to those impacted by yesterday's tragic event at Old National Bank. The victims and their loved ones are in our thoughts.

—The PCBB TeamIn the US, 34MM people were food insecure in 2021, the most recent year for which numbers are available. Of those Americans experiencing food insecurity, 9MM were children. Food banks had 53MM customers. Now that pandemic-related, extra federal aid has ended, those in need of meals must rely on community resources even more than they did before the pandemic.In our second Community Banking Month piece, we’ll turn now to the charitable efforts that community financial institutions (CFIs) are making in order to fight hunger and food insecurity in their own communities.In Toledo, Ohio, Waterford Bank gave a $500 scholarship to the Toledo Grows Art Festival and Harvest Dinner. The money helps support the GROWS program, which provides seeds, plants, tools, expertise, and volunteers to support 150+ community gardens and urban farming outreach efforts. These gardens then help feed community members. The vast majority of recipients have low and middle incomes, and the program helps them save between $75 and $380 in food costs annually.Five employee volunteers also visited the hub farm in downtown Toledo and spent ten hours helping to ready the greenhouse for the 2023 growing season. Organizers hope that this and other community gardens will help revitalize these neglected urban spaces and turn them into places for community programs and celebrations.Bank of Utah employees in Ogden, Utah volunteer for a program called Bridging the Gap, which distributes food to children in need. Partnering with Catholic Community Services, seven to ten volunteers visit an inner-city elementary school on a Friday and give each child two bags of healthy, easily prepared meals and snacks to feed them through the weekend. The team also gives the kids fun, age-appropriate financial education tips.In Winona, Minnesota, WNB Financial conducted their Minnesota FoodShare March Campaign Grocery Grab event. It was their fifth annual event, and they collected 1,143 pounds of food and personal care items, worth $5,060.91, for the Winona Volunteer Services Food Shelf. Nine teams participated in the occasion, which was held at Midtown Foods, with each team getting 90 seconds to race through the store and grab groceries. Event host WNB set a new event record of $821 in food shelf goods, winning the Golden Grocery Cart traveling trophy. The Minnesota FoodShare March Campaign is the largest grassroots food and fund drive in the state.Coastal Community Bank of Everett, Washington decorated and stuffed 1K snack bags for two schools in the Everett School District. These schools have many students who eat their only meal of the day  at school. The snack bags are meant to help them get through the weekends.The dedication that these institutions have to decreasing hunger and food insecurity in their communities is exemplary, and these are exactly the kind of charitable acts that we love to highlight. Thank you again to our readers for sharing these stories and demonstrating the strong connection between banks and their communities. Please join us next Tuesday, April 18, as we continue honoring community banks that have made a difference.