Good News Florida

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The thing about us is all the decisions are made right here. It’s not Charlotte. It’s not Birmingham. It’s not Arkansas. South Florida – that is our world. But wait. Here’s one of the things we have done that I love. We have quite a few churches and nonprofits, both faith-based and secular. So the thing I find really rewarding is to partner with – especially – I get to be a partner in Kingdom business because those organizations, they need banks, and so I get to usemy talents and giftings to further King- dom business. And the truth of the matter is some banks don’t really want to bank churches and nonprofits because they’re considered high risk. So that’s been really re- warding for me to be involved in the faith-based community. SP – Are there any charities you support as a company? GM – Yes we have. So, whether it’s Sheridan House or 4KIDS, they’re going to have golf tournaments. They’re going to have galas, so yes, we’re going to support, sponsor. I’mon the board of Taylor’s Closet. I’ma former boardmember of 4KIDS, and I’ma former foster parent and adoptive parent, so that’s a group that’s very near and dear to my heart. I’ll tell you what we did. Instead of giving our customers the traditional gift basket for being a customer at Christmas, what we decided to do is take that money and we made a contribution to Hope South Florida. So, we’ve done that in the past. We did a couple of years of giving gift baskets and popcorn, but because of the hurricane and some of the things that happened in 2017 we said, hey, let’s go ahead and what we do is send out a card to our customers saying here’s why you didn’t get a basket from us. SP – Did you get any response? GM – Yes, most people look at that from a positive standpoint because I think they get that’s probably a better use of resources. Of course, one of my personal passions is fighting human trafficking. In October I completed my fifth hike with Freedom Challenge, and of course, my hardest was 2015 when I climbed Kilimanjaro with 20 other people. That effort raised $800,000, which was amazing as a team of 20. So I personally raised $63,000 and that really came frommy bank owner, my directors, my employees, customers and the community at large. Because it was aminimum$50,000 raise and that scaredme as much as the 19,340 foot mountain we were going to climb. It was amazing how God just showed up. So that was definitely memorable. So, I’m going to continue to do that. Over the last couple of years I’ve actually led a team, so I really like that aspect be- cause I love the outdoors and I love that a lot of these women who go on these hikes are not experienced. They are doing something that’s totally out of their comfort zone, and it’s just this huge – great for the cause but its great for the individual. And so to be part of that whether its from the training and the equipment and whether it’s the hike and saying ok we can do this and then the satisfaction after they complete it. It’s really life changing for a lot of these women, so FreedomChallenge has asked me to be part of their national leadership team. Here’s what I’m getting ready to do. I’m going toAfrica at the end of the month to visit six of the projects at Zambia that these funds support. So let me tell you something about my bank. My bank my owner has been so sup- portive of me both financially and to let me have this time off. When I’m doing these trips, I’m not taking vacation. He is giving that time to me as part of a community involvement because as a community bank, and you can say this about American National Bank, we want to give back to the community. That is part of our DNA is being engaged. In fact, we’re getting ready to participate in this reading program where United Way is doing this. We’re going to volunteer to read to kids in the classroom. Over the years we’ve done different things. Whether it’s American Cancer Society Relay for Life… We went through a period of time where we would send two people once a month to LifeNet for Families and feed the homeless. And, of course, what we do, that’s paid time, so I really encourage people if they care about something, the bank wants to support them from a time off standpoint. We don’t have the huge budgets, but what we do have we use to hopefully make the community a better place… And if we can go back to Lifework. I have seen over the years that the section about generosity. When we do the whole $25 Publix gift card or even when we did the whole Rebuilding Together. It changes people’s perspective just encouraging or even talking about that. SP – Was Freedom Challenge a Lifework Link? GM – Yes, the Deglers – Lori was in Lifework. Lori invited me to a luncheon in Feb- ruary 2013 because she was involved with Operation Mobilization and she had done Kil- imanjaro in 2012. So they were having this luncheon and honestly, I knew nothing about human trafficking. They had a local survivor that spoke who was unbelievable, her story, LIFEWORK LEADERSHIP 16 MARCH 2018 Good News • South Florida Edition Ginger Martin… (Continued from page 14) (Continued on page 31)