ALEXANDRIA, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GAEDA Revitalization Corporation (GRC) of Alexandria, Louisiana, yesterday received a $7,500 grant from Red River Bank.
The bank, a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas), was honored recently with FHLB Dallas’ 2019 CARE Award. CARE stands for Community Area Revitalization Efforts and the award recognized Red River Bank’s commitment to community revitalization.
The award comes with $7,500 for the bank to provide as a grant to a nonprofit of its choice. On Tuesday, that $7,500 grant was officially presented to GRC.
“I plan to use the grant to cover cost overruns on some of our repair projects,” said GRC Executive Director Willie Spears.
GRC also has used Special Needs Assistance Program (SNAP) funds funneled through FHLB Dallas to Red River Bank, as well as a $339,876 Affordable Housing Program (AHP) grant, to help seniors revitalize their aging homes. “We are fortunate to have partners like Red River Bank that make an investment in us,” Mr. Spears said.
Thanks to the funding, GRC is well on its way to helping 50 senior citizens in the Alexandria and Pineville, Louisiana, areas make emergency repairs to their homes, allowing them to live safely and independently.
“The availability of safe, decent, affordable housing is fundamental to a family forging a path out of poverty, and that is really important to me,” said Jannease Seastrunk, vice president and CRA officer at Red River Bank. “I am very proud of the work we do around community development. Here at Red River Bank we have the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives, and we have the resources to do that through our partnership with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas.”
Red River Bank President and CEO Blake Chatelain said banks hold a special place in communities as the allocators of capital. “At our core, we have this belief that we need to reinvest in our communities, that we need to be leaders in helping our communities grow and prosper,” he said.
Red River Bank’s long-time partnership with FHLB Dallas has enabled the bank to support the community in a way that would not have been possible without such a partnership, Mr. Chatelain said. Since 1999, the year Red River Bank opened, it has leveraged $9.1 million in FHLB Dallas grants and community investment funds to assist 530 households.
“FHLB Dallas was pleased to honor Red River Bank as a 2019 CARE Award recipient,” said Greg Hettrick, first vice president and director of Community Investment at FHLB Dallas. “Red River Bank has fully embraced the community investment programs FHLB Dallas offers. We were happy to recognize Red River Bank with the CARE Award for its investments in the community and are pleased that it chose GRC as the recipient of the accompanying $7,500 grant.”
Over the past 20 years, Red River Bank has used a wide variety of FHLB Dallas community grant programs, including the Homebuyer Equity Leverage Partnership program, which assists income-qualified, first-time homebuyers with down payments and closing costs, and Special Needs Assistance Program grants, which provide funds to eligible special-needs homeowners to repair and rehabilitate their homes.
It also has partnered with FHLB Dallas on Affordable Housing Program grants, which finance the purchase, construction and/or rehabilitation of owner-occupied, rental or transitional housing and housing for the homeless as well as the Partnership Grant Program, which awards funds to community-based organizations.
About Red River Bancshares, Inc
Red River Bank is the sixth largest Louisiana-based community bank and serves customers from its 24 banking centers in and surrounding Alexandria, Shreveport/Bossier, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Covington, Louisiana. Headquartered in Alexandria, Louisiana and founded in 1999, the bank specializes in financial services and solutions for Louisiana consumers and small to mid-size businesses. Red River Bank is a subsidiary of Red River Bancshares, Inc, which trades under the trading symbol RRBI on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. Additional information can be found at redriverbank.net.
About the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas is one of 11 district banks in the FHLBank System created by Congress in 1932. FHLB Dallas, with total assets of $73.8 billion as of September 30, 2019, is a member-owned cooperative that supports housing and community investment by providing competitively priced loans and other credit products to approximately 815 members and associated institutions in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. For more information, visit fhlb.com.
