Making Change

Westfield Savings Bank's well-established relationship with the American Red Cross and the director of its local chapter, Rich Rubin, proved to be beneficial when tornadoes touched down across Greater Springfield on June 1.

"The next day we were on the phone with them, promising anything we could do to help," said Cathy Jocelyn, the bank's marketing manager.

That help took the form of an immediate $25,000 donation for relief efforts and the establishment of a fund into which community members can donate; that money, too, will be put to use by the Red Cross.

"When the tornado happened, Rich asked us to set up a special fund used just for tornado relief efforts, not just in Westfield, but throughout our communities where we have branches," Jocelyn said. "Westfield was hit, but not to the extent that Springfield and West Springfield were, and we want to be there for all the tornado victims."

Other area banks also sprang into action immediately. Hampden Bank donated $75,000 to the Red Cross and $25,000 to the Salvation Army, while establishing the Greater Springfield Tornado Relief Fund, collecting donations at all its branches to benefit the storm-relief efforts of both organizations.

Meanwhile, the Berkshire Bank Foundation has donated $10,000 to the Red Cross and will release additional grant funds to area nonprofits as needs in the recovery effort are identified. And Bank of America has taken a similar approach, donating $25,000 to the Red Cross with plans to allocate another $25,000 in rants as rebuilding gets underway, while the bank's charitable foundation matches employee pledges.

Several of these institutions are members of the Western Massachusetts Funders Forum, a group of local businesses and organizations that meet quarterly to discuss charitable needs in the region and how they're responding to those needs. Soon after the tornado struck, the membets convened and took a hard look at the long-term aftermath of the storm.

The banks involved in the collective had, without exception, immediately donated money to relief efforts, such as United Bank's $25,000 donation to the Red Cross, a $75,000 pledge to nonprofits that were affected by the storm or are aiding relief efforts, and a fund-drive partnership with WGGB ABC40/Fox6.

But the needs won't go away as media coverage of the disaster abates, said Dena Hall, United's vice president of marketing and community relations.

"We were focused on relief in the beginning," she explained. "But now there's this whole process of recovery, and the community needs are just as dramatic."

In this issue, BusinessWest examines how area banks spearheaded an initial surge of support for relief efforts, and what they're doing going forward to help smooth the path to recovery in their communities.

Helping the Helpers

In some ways, those initial grants to the Red Cross, while critical to efforts to shelter and feed displaced families and help them begin the slow path to recovery, were the easy part for banks. Next come the tougher decisions as to who should receive aid.

"One of the things we focused on at the binders meeting was that, for some affected nonprofits, their insurance policies cover the damage but not the lost income," Hall told BusinessWest. For instance, Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society, located just off Springfield's ravaged Main Street, "generates lots of income through the animal-adoption process, but they moved all

their animals out of town to take on animals that were displaced by the storm, and that's not covered by insurance."

An animal shelter might not normally fall under United's giving priorities, she said, but the bank will consider it during its next funding cycle. "As a corporate funding community, we are reaching out and collectively reviewing grants and trying to support these organizations as they recover."

PeoplesBank has chipped in on multiple fronts as well. It initially donated $50,000 to the Red Cross and another $50,000 to affected nonprofits, including Square One, the early-education provider whose downtown Springfield headquarters was devastated in the storm. Beyond that first wave of financial help, PeoplesBank will donate $100,000 to efforts the institution identifies as being critical to long-term recovery.

The bank has also rallied its employees to the cause, matching their gifts toward tornado-relief efforts, and also engaging them in volunteer efforts as the cleanup and rebuilding continues.

That's also been a priority at Berkshire Bank, through its employee volunteer program, which has been sending staffers to donate their time with HAP Housing and other agencies, and also at Monson Savings Bank.

"We've started volunteer efforts for employees on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays," said Steven Lowell, MSB's president. "They're going out and helping people cut trees and clean up around their property. They aren't necessarily our customers, but they're people in the community who need help and might not have a way to get it."

Picking Up the Pieces

Helping out individual customers, both homeowners and businesses, affected by the tornadoes is a more complex matter. Banks aren't going so far as to forgive loans--instead directing people to resources offered by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)--but some have created low-interest emergency-loan products to help storm victims get back on their feet.

At Westfield Bank, Jocelyn said, "we've offered a secure loan program that we advertised in the paper," with special rates being offered for emergency assistance through June 30."

Otherwise, banks say they're working with customers on a case-by-case basis to respond to needs.

"In terms of loans, we are certainly assessing everything," Hall said. "Within two days of the storm, we had geocoded a map of the whole branch network and which households were affected, and we're working with customers."

"Now that FEMA is involved, it seems like the majority of individuals' needs will be covered between FEMA and their insurance claims," she added. "If customers have other needs, we can work with them to the extent we can to make sure we're not causing

more pain and distress in their lives right now."

In Monson and its environs, Lowell said, "we're looking at home situations on an individual basis. We've gone out and and attempted to survey, just from the street, those residents and businesses where we have loans, to see if there's any external damage. We've been reaching out to those customers to find out what the situation is. Many of them have the situation well under control. We have advised all our customers, if they did suffer any damage, to register with FEMA and the SBA, as grants and low-interest loans are available to help people in that regard.

"Beyond that, we're helping them coordinate things," he added. "They've got the government involved, insurance companies involved, and potentially the banks involved."

Lowell said the bank is also setting up home inspections for affected customers to provide a level of security for those picking up the pieces.

"Let's face it--none of us has been through anything like this on this scale before," he told BusinessWest. "We want to make sure people don't make mistakes with respect to the people who do construction or rehab work on their house.

"We're requiring inspections to make sure the contractor isn't taking short cuts, and that they're dealing with a legitimate contractor," Lowell went on. "A lot of people, unfortunately, try to take advantage of situations like this, and some contractors are willing to make a quick buck. We want to make sure people's eyes are wide open and make sure the work is being done properly."

Rick DeBonis, senior vice president of marketing at Hampden Bank, said his institution has been contacting all its mortgage and home-equity customers who suffered losses and giving them similar advice about making sure they're working with legitimate contractors.

"We're the lienholder, and we have to sign the check from the insurance company as well," he said, "So we're making an effort to get the right information to our customers so they can make sure they're doing everything right."

Shining a Light

Banks, of course, aren't the only businesses or organizations contributing mightily to tornado relief and recovery. The Funders Forum alone includes several others, including companies like MassMutual and grant-making agencies like the Jewish Federation and the United Way of Pioneer Valley. The latter has also coordinated disaster-relief volunteer efforts with the assistance of a national organization, ALL Hands Volunteers, which specializes in providing cleanup and recovery services to residents, businesses, and nonprofit organizations.

Meanwhile, the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts (CFWM) has reached out to area nonprofit organizations located in the path of the tornadoes to gain an understanding of the impact on facilities and services in the region, and has established a relief fund that has collected more than $100,000 to date, including a $25,000 donation from PeoplesBank.

"We felt it was important to convene the members of the corporate giving community and those agencies involved in providing support during the disaster to discuss our collective response," said Ron Ancrum, CFWM president, regarding the forum's efforts. "Many of us have already made commitments, and we know that our combined contributions of cash and volunteer efforts will make a big difference to the community as we move into the recovery phase of this disaster."

Just as important, Hall said, is continuing to shine a very public light on needs that are not going away anytime soon.

"Tornado recovery is so huge," she told BusinessWest. "If you're back to your daily routine and you're not personally affected, or if you don't drive down Union Street in West Springfield or work in downtown Springfield, you can kind of forget about it. We want to keep this at the top of people's minds."

Lowell can't forget, either, not when he drives through Monson every day and talks to customers and others who, as late as May 31, never expected to be dealing with the aftereffects of a tornado. But dealing with it they are, and as recovery efforts move forward, area banks continue to shine that light--and spread the wealth.

"We're not only involved," Lowell said, "we're committed."