PHOTO: Mark Favazza, Executive Director of the Northern Neck Family YMCA presents volunteer opportunities to our support building employees.
We are excited to announce that our employees beat their own record! That’s right. In 2017 our employees pooled together to give back 5,227 hours of their time. Last year we completed over 6,000. In addition to that our entire organization (including our three lines of business, Cash Flow, Chesapeake Payment Systems, and Chesapeake Wealth Management) was able to donate over $300,000 to local non-profits and community organizations in 2018. There were 120 organizations throughout all of our services areas, Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, Williamsburg and Richmond, that benefited from the donations of money and time.
“Our organization is only as strong as the communities we serve,” comments Jeff Szyperksi, CEO of Chesapeake Financial Shares, holding company of Chesapeake Bank and Chesapeake Wealth Management, “It is so important for a community bank to be truly part of its community. And, what better way to do that than to encourage volunteerism among employees.”
We’re also happy to announce this year, we launched a paid time-off program for volunteer efforts for all employees. “We are so excited to be able to offer this benefit to employees. Volunteerism is part of who we are as individuals and an organization,” says Pat Lewis, Director of Human Resources. “This will enable every full-time employee to choose 16 hours, part-time employees receive 8 hours, to give back to something important to them in their community."
To help keep employees excited, we’ve also begun having a monthly drawing internally. Every employee is encouraged to submit their volunteer time through an internal tracking program. Once a month a winner is selected and awarded a gift card. January’s winner was Laurie Rowe. February’s winner was Erin Johnston, and Melissa Hicks is our March winner!
With these new programs, we’re sure to beat this year’s goal as well. Thank you to all of the employees (and the support of the company) that make this announcement possible!