the gift of Community

The Gift of Community
written by Susan Griffis, Associate Vice President of Marketing, Shepherds College

Read through the Community State Bank website and you will see statements like “relationship-driven,” “creating a culture that exemplifies positivity,” and “investing our time, talents and resources into building the communities we serve.”

These statements aren’t just empty messages created at a monthly marketing meeting and then forgotten about. They are statements lived out by the bank president and his staff on a daily basis.

Visit the Community State Bank Facebook and Instagram pages and scroll through posts of free community events they’ve hosted, farmers and other business owners they serve, and neighbors with real needs they support. Several of those posts will be about the café they built for Shepherds College, a post-secondary school for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

For the students, Shepherds Community Café was a message saying, “You matter in this community.” For Shepherds College, the café was an awesome blessing that still continues to reveal other important gifts through the bank’s original, generous act. By caring for their neighbors, the bank gave the college:

The Gift of Community

From the grand opening to now, the chairs at Shepherds Community Café are filled with supportive neighbors, local business owners, out of town visitors, media personnel, Community State Bank employees, and Shepherds College parents, students and staff. The students and alumni who work at the café, our baristas, are being exposed to new people and potential new friends every day. These interactions give the students the opportunity to build their communities and support systems. Each relationship developed can be a source of wisdom, spiritual guidance, life experience or assistance as these students learn to live on their own after graduation.

Every contact is also an opportunity for the students to give back – to engage in another’s life – sharing their unique abilities and personalities with the people around them. With each connection made and every relationship built, the students are creating safer and more welcoming communities in which they can live out their dreams of independence.
 
Read about the Gift of Experience in the February 11, 2019 blog.  The Gift of Awareness and the Gift of Financial Support coming in March.

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