Community Service 2009 Company of the Week

June 28, 2009

First Commonwealth Financial Corporation

First Commonwealth’s Jenna Williams (at back) with Teach Children to Save participants – 2009

First Commonwealth’s Chris Ream (far right) shown with
more participants in Teach Children to Save – 2009.  Chris coordinates First Commonwealth’s participation every year.

Again this year, First Commonwealth Bank, headquartered in Indiana, PA with 115 branch offices located throughout 15 counties in central and western Pennsylvania, joined the financial literacy effort by coordinating “Teach Children to Save” events throughout Southwestern, PA over a two-week period in April and May of 2009.

A total of seven First Commonwealth employee “teachers” representing several of the company’s Pittsburgh area offices, visited over 1,000 students ranging from kindergarten to the 12th grade in several area schools, and used their banking expertise to create out-of-the-ordinary classroom lessons to inspire students to become life-long savers.

The younger kids learned about savings accounts and why they should use a bank instead of a "piggy" bank to save; high school teens were taught the intricacies of how to manage a checkbook; and both groups received lessons on knowing the difference between needs and wants when making spending decisions.

These lessons will hopefully leave a lasting impression on the students and encourage them to pursue a greater understanding of financial matters. So far, the feedback from the schools has been phenomenal and First Commonwealth plans to participate in this worthy project again next year.

Junior Achievement and First Commonwealth Bank

Brentwood School 7th grade students participating in the Junior Achievement event (FCB’s Adam Huber is pictured in the back row)

On Wednesday, April 23, 2009, some 1,300 middle school (5th grade & 7th grade) students from across Western, PA converged on Duquesne University for the annual Junior Achievement Career Fair. One portion of the event is a special “industry awareness” competition for 7th graders.  As part of the competition, teams of four (4) students collaborate with a particular business to learn about their industry and job opportunities. Adam Huber, Business Banker, and Deb Maddock, Office Manager, with First Commonwealth Bank (FCB) participated in a series of educational events connected to the Career Fair, including mentoring sessions with the 7th grade teams.  The sessions were held both at their school and First Commonwealth also hosted the students at a branch office to help the teams learn about banking and see what it is like to work at First Commonwealth Bank. In addition, FCB’s Human Resources Staffing Manager, Jesse Brocious, assisted the teams by completing detailed questionnaires and providing them with employee benefits information. From there, the students developed their version of recruitment brochures based on information gathered from these sessions.                        

Sporting First Commonwealth shirts, the 7th grade teams invited the 5th graders to visit the “FCB Booth” where they answered questions about working in the banking industry and talked specifically the benefits of working at First Commonwealth. Shaking hands and greeting visitors professionally, the two teams did a great job representing First Commonwealth at the event.

The ‘Junior Achievement Career Fair’ and ‘Teach Children to Save’ are just a few of the ways First Commonwealth reaches out to our community and assists in the financial education of their communities. In addition, the company is currently in the process of rolling out an internal Financial Education campaign that is geared toward helping employees be even more knowledgeable during these challenging economic times… as well as helping them to be better equipped to navigate financial challenges in their personal lives.  There are also external financial literacy tools on the company’s website: http://www.fcbanking.com/Banking/Financial_Education/Financial_Education.html

These are just a few examples of the many Financial Education efforts at First Commonwealth!  The company sincerely appreciates the many efforts of their employees who regularly give their time and energy in financial education outreach.

Congratulations First Commonwealth!

For more information on Community Service 2009, please visit www.financialcommunityservice.org.

For more information on CS09 Company of the Week, please contact Aleksia@fsround.org.

Click Here to view a list of our past Companies of the Week.