PACB Answers Governor Rendell's Call for Service

Governor Rendell, Secretary Kaplan, and First Lady Michelle Obama have asked PACB to spread the word and rally community bankers to support the service initiative "Get Help Now PA." Governor Rendell held a press conference via webcast on Monday, June 22 asking professionals in the financial services and legal services industries to band together and help fellow Pennsylvanians.

Beginning on Tuesday, July 7, there will be 15 locations across the Commonwealth that will be open to citizens in need of legal and financial services help. The Governor and First Lady have requested that each location be staffed with attorneys, community bankers, and other financial services professionals. The teams of volunteers will listen as the citizens present their situations and help by providing information on possible courses of action and reference information for appropriate government or non-profit agencies that can help fill their needs.

These help desks will be open every Tuesday and Thursday for several hours until the National Day of Service on September 11. Attached is all of the information we currently have available. The Introduction document gives you some background information on the initiative. The Details document will provide you with specific information such as help desk hours, time span of initiative, etc. The Regional Locations are identified in the Help Desk Locations document. The Volunteer Primer is a rough draft of the document that will be available to the volunteers--providing some ideas and options on how to help customers with some of the more popular problems. Please feel free to print out the Poster, fill in the location of the closest help desk in the blank, and post at your bank.

Please contact Kristine Warner by emailing kristine@pacb.org or calling 717-231-7447 if you are interested in getting your institution involved with this effort or if you have any questions. There will be another conference call dealing with the details of scheduling help desk volunteers early next week.