Newtown Savings Bank Sets New Standard

For Community Service, Mortgage Lending

By John Voket

Newtown Savings Bank has depended on the patronage of countless individuals and businesses, first here in Newtown, and extending to each new community as the bank’s branches began proliferating throughout the region.

Since its inception, NSB as a corporate entity has also been engaged in giving back to the communities it serves through grants, loans, and donations, along with thousands of hours of individual volunteer contributions made by the bank’s many employees, corporators, and directors.

But since January 2009, NSB has taken its celebrated tradition of giving back to a whole new level, through its NSBCare program. During the program’s roll-out, NSB President and CEO John Trentacosta challenged all his employees to volunteer.

And he set a goal of attaining 100 percent involvement in community service within the next few years.

Recently, however, during the bank’s annual employee awards meeting, Mr Trentacosta announced that his challenge had been met in just one year with more than 200 bank employees participating in some manner of local community service, and delivering well over 9,000 hours of volunteer services to about 200 different causes.

“I could not be more thrilled to report this terrific news,” he said in a release this week. “Newtown Savings Bank employees really stepped up, especially during these difficult times, in helping our community’s elderly, its youth, and its hungry — to name just a few.”

In addition to volunteer hours, Newtown Savings Bank and its employees contributed more than $250,000 to community programs in 2009, and collected over a ton-and-a-half of food for a network of local pantries and shelters.

As recently as last Saturday, Newtown Savings Bank sponsored what organizers confirmed was the largest St Baldrick’s event in the world, held by the largest St Baldrick’s team in the world. And the NSB’s own group of supporters, TeamBrent, held its annual flagship St Baldrick’s celebration at Arena at Harbor Yard.

That day, more than 500 men, women, and children raised more than a half-million dollars in donations in exchange for shaving their heads to raise awareness and funds to help fight pediatric cancer. In the coming year NSB and its employees plan to be busier than ever maintaining and increasing the level of responsiveness they have already shown through the NSBCare initiative, according to Tanya Wulff Truax, vice president/marketing and public relations.

In other related news, NSB recently announced the opening of the its 14th branch — the second location in Monroe.

According to Mr Trentacosta, “The residents and business owners of Monroe have been great supporters of the bank and we are happy to be able to offer an enhanced convenience through our new branch.”

In addition, 2009 represented NSB’s top mortgage lending year in its 154-history, taking the 18th position among 190 of Connecticut’s mortgage lenders.

The bank’s Sr Vice President Margaret A. Powers said, “For a community bank our size to be producing mortgage volume to make us 18th in the State of Connecticut is a huge accomplishment, and one that we are very proud of. It takes a whole team to make this happen and each and every one has played an important role in this accomplishment.”