In late March we were thrown into a world of uncertainty. Our events, community fundraisers, and volunteer opportunities were disintegrating all around us. At NebraskaLand Bank, we focus heavily on our culture statements and we strive to embody each aspect of what our culture works hard to accomplish. We began to brainstorm, ask ourselves important questions, and found answers. We knew we needed to help our businesses and nonprofits. We needed to bring positivity and cheer to the community. We needed to support those on the frontlines, and so we did. We came up with a multitude of campaigns while focusing on customer and employee safety.
While it was a difficult decision to close our lobby doors for these past couple of months, we have maintained a constant presence for our customers and our community. We decided early on that we would take the time to work with customers, teach them how to utilize our online services, and make accommodations that would best serve them while keeping everyone safe. We have maintained fully operational drive-thru services and our loans department became experts in the government programs available to business owners for the unpredictable transition to life during the pandemic.
We also decided it was important to continue to provide sponsorships during this difficult time. Rather than following the trend of shutting down our donations site, we sought out making a difference for hundreds of families as well as keep donation opportunities open as a resource for our community. When schools announced closures until Fall, we knew that many families would be affected by the loss of school lunches. Our donation to the North Platte Public School’s Foundation in part allowed them to expand their program & increase food packages for the entire week to area elementary schools for the remainder the school year. In our Kearney location, many of the non-profits that we support were cancelling events. We decided that maintaining our donation to the Kearney Area Community Foundation was more important than ever to help local non-profits survive this time of uncertainty.
As we are entering a stage in the pandemic where we, and other businesses are beginning to open doors “normal” looks a bit different. We strive to ensure that we reference regulations and guidelines that are in place for what matters most, our customers and our employees. As a way to safeguard, we are offering face coverings for our employees, implemented Plexiglas coverings, and social distance markers throughout our facility.
While we were all thrown into a world of uncertainty, we have witnessed and proudly been a part of the determination of our community to be stronger than we ever imagined. As we strive to embody the aspects of our company culture and community mindedness, we continue to be a source of visibility, encouragement, and stability to the areas we serve. With each campaign to make our unwavering presence known to our loan officers working tirelessly to provide support to local businesses, we can say with certainty that we have a culture stronger than COVID-19.