On Oct. 5, Community Bank of Parkersburg in Parkersburg, W.Va., partnered with local shredding company Gator Shredding to host a community “shred day,” where members of the community could bring up to two containers of documents to be safely destroyed.
The $319 million-asset community bank ran its first shred day back in 2014, but it didn’t become an annual event until 2019. Held on the first Saturday of October to coincide with Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the event is designed to help protect the community from identity theft and fraud.
“We wanted to offer this community service as a way to safely destroy documents that contain PII [personally identifiable information] and bring awareness to the importance of the issue to our community,” said Susan A. Barber, president and CEO of Community Bank of Parkersburg.
This year, 110 vehicles brought documents to the bank headquarters to be shredded—about twice as many as in 2023. “We hope to expand that [number] every year,” said Mary Ann Laughery, the community bank’s vice president and director of retail banking and marketing.
The bank also collected socks, hats, gloves and other cold weather supplies throughout October. Of the 708 items donated, more than 300 were donated during the shred day. “Anytime we’ve done any kind of food drive or whatever it is that we’re trying to collect donations for,” said Laughery, “our community has been very generous.”
