Page 29 - BusinessWest January 6, 2025

EXPERTISE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
When you arrive at a certain size, your banking needs become more complex. With Country Bank’s commercial banking team, you get customized problem-solving, higher lending limits, industry expertise, and highly responsive service.
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Giving
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and tabling opportunities during and surrounding the university’s sporting events. “That’s another way to practice corporate responsibility, by amplify- ing other businesses,” Boivin said.
Moving the Needle
And then, there are the votes.
Two local banks — Florence Savings Bank, through its Customers’ Choice program, and Monson Savings Bank, through its Community Giv- ing Initiative — just finished another annual round of voting by customers and community members on what organizations they’d like the banks to support with donations.
“We began this back in 2010. We’re aware of a lot of different nonprofits that are doing a lot of good work, but not all of them,” Moriarty said, and since its inception, the program has grown significantly. “It’s exciting — now we have nonprofits say, ‘hey, Dan, when do we launch the CGI initia- tive, so we can get the information to voters?’ It’s been a great program for us, and we’ve met a lot of great organizations across the Pioneer Valley.”
Florence Bank’s program is in its 23rd year, and the most recent round
“Yes, we write checks and donate money, but a lot of it, for us, comes down to volunteer efforts and fundraising and spreading the word about events organizations are having, or participating in those events when they have the.”
of voting drew more than 7,000 ballots, Garrity noted. “We’ve even tried to provide, for the benefit of a lot of our nonprofit organizations, tips on how to get the message out to their supporters around Customers’ Choice. It’s really been something the community has embraced.”
Readers have probably noticed the word ‘community’ repeated often throughout this article — more than two dozen times, in fact. But there’s a good reason for that.
“The word ‘community’ can be overused, but it really does feel like we’re a community of people helping others in the community,” Boivin said. “Our whole mission is set up to help people. The biggest way we do that is in the financial world, but there are a lot of other pillars here.
“When you think about the budgets we have for marketing and out- reach, they are not as big as some of the community banks in our area,” he went on. “And, yes, we write checks and donate money, but a lot of it, for us, comes down to volunteer efforts and fundraising and spreading the word about events organizations are having, or participating in those events when they have them.
“A lot of it is a boots-on-the-ground effort,” Boivin added. “We don’t just write checks; we show up. That’s an internal mantra of ours.” BW
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Berkshire
adding that the combined bank will maintain its strong ties with its com- munities and be better-positioned to elevate its impact through its commu- nity banking business model.
The combined company’s board of directors will consist of eight direc- tors from Berkshire and eight directors from Brookline. Brunelle will serve as chairperson of the board of the combined company and the combined bank. Perrault will serve as president and CEO.
The combined bank will be divided into six regions, each led by an experienced local leader who will be responsible for the overall business performance in their market. Three will be from Berkshire and three will be from Brookline. This model will allow the combined company to achieve the efficiencies of operating one bank while maintaining a regional banking structure that enables local market leaders to make autonomous decisions with the support and balance sheet of a larger institution.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of the second half of 2025, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approvals and approvals from Berkshire and Brookline shareholders. BW
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