Four local schools were awarded $5,000 for receiving the most votes in "Investing With You" contest
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Independent Bank and its employees wanted to give back to their communities, so they created a donation campaign titled ‘Investing With You,’ where employees are donating $1.50 each Friday to wear jeans. The bank is then matching those donations, which equals out to be $60,000 for the year. The accumulated amount each month, $5,000, will be donated to a different local organization. The contest is broken up into three phases. Phase one was designated for local schools in the communities served by Independent Bank. Phase two will take place between July and September of this year, and phase three will occur October through December. Each phase will give away $20,000 for a total of $60,000.
All three phases of the contest will be held on Independent Bank’s website, www.IndependentBank.com/Investing. For the first phase, the public had the opportunity to nominate any local school between April 1 and April 15, 2015. Criteria for qualification included a school’s location in the county of an Independent Bank branch or within 10 miles from a branch. The school had to be a public, private, or a non-profit charter school. There were a total of 476 qualified schools nominated.
The voting period took place April 29 through May 13, 2015. Eligible voters had to be 18 years or older and be a resident of Michigan for the votes to qualify. Voters were able to vote one time per day per school for the entire voting period. “We never anticipated this level of participation from our local schools and communities. The amount of votes we saw daily was amazing. We had over 12,000 votes in the first two days, and it just went viral. We were hearing from many parents, schools, and customers that they thought this was a great opportunity, and they were sharing it with everyone they knew on Facebook. We even had some schools sending out text alerts and linking our website page to their school’s website to remind people to vote,” said Director of Marketing Tricia Raquepaw.
At the conclusion of the voting period, the Investing With You contest had received more than 80,000 votes and each of the four winning schools received more than 7,000 votes. The winning schools were Trinity Lutheran Monitor School in Bay City, Our Lady of Lake Huron Catholic School of Harbor Beach, DeWitt High School of DeWitt, and Oxbow Elementary of White Lake. Employees of Independent Bank had the privilege of learning what each school intended to do with the unexpected funds and presenting them with a $5,000 check this week.
“At Independent Bank, giving back to our communities is as important to us as giving loans or holding deposits. It’s our mission to serve our communities in ways that go beyond the walls of our banks. As residents of these great towns, we take pride in our schools and children, and we couldn’t think of a better place to donate our own money,” said President and CEO Brad Kessel.
“I can’t explain how wonderful the contest was for us. The outpouring of support we received from current families, former students, and parishioners was amazing. It was a great way to reinforce that we are doing wonderful things. We are now able to upgrade our classroom furniture because of this gift,” said David Mausolf, Principal of Our Lady of Lake Huron Catholic Church.
Chris McAuliffe, Principal at Oxbow Elementary said, “This award could not have come at a better time. We have so many wonderful things we want to do for our students, but often the money is just not there. With this money, we will be able to update literacy materials in the classroom as well as expand our technology. Oxbow is an amazing place, and with the help of Independent Bank, we will be able to offer our students opportunities that would have not been possible otherwise.”
“I am very thankful to Independent Bank for developing this contest. Winning this money means a lot to a school like ours; it means that we can do something extra for the children in our school that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do,” stated Janet Peckelmann, Principal at Trinity Lutheran Monitor. “We are going to tithe 10 percent of it to our current mission of Gospel Nets and use that $500 to buy Bibles. Our school board is going to come up with four or five ways to use the remaining money, and let the families and supporters of our school have input as to what they would like to see the money used for. We feel that is only right since all of their votes helped us to win the money.”
Jody McKean, Principal at DeWitt High School said, “The contest was a wonderful opportunity for schools to earn additional money for a specific purpose that may not be affordable in the current or upcoming budget. It provided a platform to demonstrate community support and pride for our school, as we rallied from behind within the last hour of voting to secure third place. We will be using this prize money to build a greenhouse that will be used to support our science classes. We truly appreciate the generosity and support from Independent Bank as a proud recipient of $5,000!”
Look for the announcement of phase two in July for the ‘Investing With You’ campaign.
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