By Katie Boyd
How FirstCapital Bank of Texas has Christmas with Santa.
It’s not uncommon to hear of a bank working with a local school to teach financial literacy. It’s what we know, and to be honest, we love spreading the message of financial literacy to the next generation. We feel it’s our responsibility as community bankers and it’s a great way to make a positive and relevant impact in our community. However, sometimes we just want to let our hair down and have a little fun. That’s exactly what we decided to do in 2010 when we held our first “Christmas with Bonham” event for our Partner in Education, Bonham Elementary School.
After much discussion and 650 printed invitations later, the first annual “Christmas with Bonham” event was set into motion. At FirstCapital Bank of Texas, we never miss an opportunity to don a costume, so our Santa event is never complete without elves, a snowman, Rudolph, Christmas Gumby, and a Christmas gorilla. Why, you ask? Well…we ask why not. It makes the children laugh and the parents pull out their pocket cameras, which makes waiting in line for the big guy that much more enjoyable.
We have assigned duties such as “greeters” who welcome each guest with a roaring “Merry Christmas,” “clipboard people,” who collect names and addresses so we can mail photos to the families later. We also have “glad handlers” who handle general logistical duties as well as making sure our guests are well, glad to be with us. We have “candy cane passer outers,” “refreshment peeps” who pass out goody bags (this is a big one), we have “trash patrol,” and of course parking lot attendants. For fun, the parking lot attendants generally use light sabers to direct folks to the perfect parking spot.
After many smiles and “cheeses” later, we have a few hundred pictures to mail out to the students, faculty and families of our partner school. This has become a cherished event for us and we always have a lot of our FCB family there. This is not a sales event; we never ever mention banking at this event. This is simply an event where we get to give back to our community and make sure every single one of these students gets a picture with Santa for their memory box. We had a mom tell us this year that her child had a Santa picture from FirstCapital Bank every year since kindergarten and this year he was in sixth grade. That means something to us and we hope this is a tradition we can continue for many, many years to come!
Katie Boyd is SVP and training & marketing manager at First Capital Bank of Texas.
Every banker has a story. And we’d like to showcase them in our new feature, A Banker’s Story. Send your stories here. They don’t need to be long—200-300 words is perfect. And include a photo. We’ll let you know when they go up.
