By Stephen Smoot
On Tuesday last week, most of the Franklin area hunkered down as heat and humidity coincided with a planned maintenance outage by Mon Power.
Not the staff of Pendleton Community Bank, however. From there came an army of Kelly green T-shirt clad volunteers who sallied forth into the county to perform community service volunteer work.
“Our team loves it,” shared Monika Marshall, PCB representative, who added, “it’s a chance to have a day for team building and do something fun in the community.”
The idea started last year when the area faced another planned power outage. “In the past when the bank closed, people stayed home and we paid them,” explained Marshall. Last year they came up with a different idea, to send staff into areas of the community that needed light volunteer help.
Marshall stated, “We replicated the idea and picked new organizations to support.” Calls went out to different community organizations and teams of volunteers deployed to each.
With summer temperatures rising that day, some staff for whom exposure to heat might be dangerous traveled to Pendleton Manor to perform volunteer work and visit with residents. Others went to Warner’s Drive-In to help the arts and culture nonprofit spruce up their facility. “At their new stage, they needed folks to rake rocks up,” said Marshall. Volunteers there also filled in potholes in the driveways where rain had washed out certain spots.
Others split up to give needed and appreciated help to the Upper Tract, Franklin, and South Fork Volunteer fire departments. In Franklin and on the South Fork, they cleaned up the cook shacks that will soon go into use for community fundraising events. They also cleaned equipment and vehicles.
UTVFD’s Facebook page shared the appreciation that all of the departments felt at PCB’s staff lending a helping hand. “Today the support Pendleton Community Bank gave to us goes above and beyond!” the post stated. It went on to add that “the employees spent their day helping others when they could have been complaining about no power.”
“But instead they helped clean the Upper Tract VFD Training Center and Upper Tract VFD Firehouse and apparatus.”
Others worked on projects at Brandywine Elementary School.
PCB also showed its appreciation to its hardworking volunteers by providing a picnic lunch at Ruddle Park. “For us, it’s a part of who we are,” said Marshall. “One of our core values is being community–centered.” She explained that the day of service helped them to “live out that value in a meaningful way.”
