Community Service 2009 Company of the Week

August 23, 2009

RBC Bank, USA

Bill Bunn, RBC Bank Regional President of Retail, thanking partners for their help in the opening of the Heritage Park Learning Center.  “We are excited to celebrate RBC Bank’s partnership with Communities in Schools of Wake County and the renaming of its new building.  CIS Wake shares our commitment to the education of students in Wake County, and we are glad to be able to show our support.”

RBC Bank and its predecessors have been actively involved in communities for over 100 years.  While our employees have been participating in volunteer boards, blood drives, fundraising walks and runs over the past several years, the bank’s outreach has grown significantly in the area of financial literacy.  In 2009 to date, through our Savvy Cents program and other instruction, we have committed approximately $45,000 and 7,000 employee hours to financial literacy outreach, and have thus reached over 21,000 people.

One partnership is with Junior Achievement. More than 200 volunteers helped JA reach 4,100 students during the 2007-2008 school year through K-12 classroom programs. Its service area includes Wake, Orange and Durham Counties as well as 14 other counties surrounding the Triangle area and in Eastern North Carolina, Charlotte and Atlanta.

More than 20 RBC Bank employees taught a series of five sequential themes, each with hands-on activities, to change students’ lives by helping them understand the world around them. Through the program, volunteers from the bank lead a series of mentoring programs for 24 classes at an underprivileged school.  The students benefit from learning from local professionals, and the volunteers benefit from knowing that they are helping develop the leaders of tomorrow.

Recently, RBC Bank was asked to lead a workshop on financial literacy with over 100 teens aging out of foster care or otherwise involved in the juvenile justice system.  Team members have lead classes on college campuses, secondary schools as well as in community centers where team members tutored students in afterschool high school completion programs.

RBC Bank and Communities in Schools of Wake County recently celebrated the opening of the RBC Bank Learning Center at Heritage Park, an after-school learning center for underprivileged youth.  As the learning center is located in downtown Raleigh, NC, near the RBC Bank headquarters, several RBC Bank employees have been trained as tutors and look forward to volunteering at the learning center for the upcoming school year. 

About RBC Bank
RBC Bank, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., offers a wide range of financial services and advice to individuals, businesses and public institutions throughout the Southeast. RBC Bank’s network includes more than 430 full-service banking centers, an extensive ATM network and telephone and online banking. RBC Bank is the 40th largest U.S. bank by consolidated assets, according to the Federal Reserve Statistical Release June 30, 2008. RBC Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) (RY on the TSX and NYSE), Canada's largest and most stable bank as measured by assets and market capitalization. Global Finance Magazine named RBC the best bank in Canada in October 2008, and the safest bank in Canada for 10 consecutive years, from 1999-2008. RBC is also one of the world’s financial, social and environmental corporate leaders for the past eight years as on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. Additional information about RBC Bank may be found at www.rbcbankusa.com or contact Dorsey Landis, (919) 788-6272, Dorsey.landis@rbc.com.

Congratulations RBC Bank! 

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

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