Kindness is in the air, and the Grow Financial Foundation is looking forward to another great year of giving back!

The mission of the Grow Financial Foundation remains the same: to encourage and support the health and wellness of individuals and organizations within the communities the credit union serves through financial, educational, social, physical and mental health strategies. But for 2020, they’ve added a theme to help drive their activity: kindness is contagious.

Newly elected Chairman of the Board of the Grow Financial Foundation and Web Developer at Grow, Khenh Vong, was key in instituting the theme. “As cliché as it sounds, there’s just no end to the power of a kind act. It really can be contagious. We felt that as a theme, this sentiment would be a great way to inspire our team members to be more kind and to give back even more,” Vong said.

To that end, the Grow Financial Foundation set a lofty goal for our team members in 2020—to double our 2019 achievement of over 400 hours volunteered in our Tampa Bay and South Carolina communities.

One way we are accomplishing this goal is by creating a volunteer army within Grow. Grow team members are encouraged to serve others and being part of the volunteer army ensures that those who want to give back are aware of the opportunities, and we are able to cover even more ground supporting local groups.

A benefit the volunteer army has already brought to light was the ability to spread kindness to a new organization who needed volunteers on short notice. Tennis for Fun in Brandon, Florida, a free tennis clinic for athletes with special needs, reached out to the Grow Financial Foundation for support, and because we had a team ready to serve, we’ve already gotten out there to help!

In addition to electing a new chairman, the Grow Financial Foundation excitedly welcomed Tabatha Bowers, an Agile Product Owner at Grow, as its newest board member. “Once I started, I quickly realized that giving back was what made me happy, what made me feel whole. It’s what I like to do. I’m so excited to be a part of the Grow Financial Foundation Board and have the ability to share kindness through it,” Bowers shared.

Here’s a look at what the kindness is contagious theme means to some of the board members:

“Making a difference in people’s lives drives me to do what I do in giving back to the community. I feel a sense of responsibility to give back to others the way others gave to me,” Eli Berrios, Area Manager, said.

ChristiLee Russell, Market Manager, shared, “Without the ability to lean on your community and have people just do good because it’s the right thing to do, it can be very tough, so that’s something that has always inspired me to continue to give back. You really never know how that act of kindness is going to shape someone’s day and what it could do.”

“We don’t know the impact we can make. It doesn’t always have to be a grand gesture; it doesn’t mean you have to have a million dollars and give it away. You don’t know what little thing can turn someone’s day around,” Laurie Holloway, Chief of Staff to CEO, said.

All told, 2020 is shaping up to be a great year for the Grow Financial Foundation. If you’re looking for support for your 501(c)(3), learn more about the Grow Financial Foundation.

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