Bank of America Engages Park Forest Community With Mobile Financial Services

The Bank of America Mobile Financial Center rolled into Park Forest recently to showcase its products, services and resources, with the hope to bring awareness about its ability to help the community with its financial health. PHOTO PROVIDED BY BANK OF AMERICA.
The Bank of America Mobile Financial Center rolled into Park Forest recently to showcase its products, services and resources, with the hope to bring awareness about its ability to help the community with its financial health. PHOTO PROVIDED BY BANK OF AMERICA.

Bank of America Engages Park Forest Community With Mobile Financial Services

By Tia Carol Jones

For three days Bank of America partnered with OAI, Inc. to engage residents with its mobile financial center, financial education workshops and one-on-one counseling services. The goal of the event was to provide convenient access to the banking services to the community. Associates and specialists were on site, from small business to home loans, as well as bankers and Operation Hope counselors, to bring a full suite of specialists’ resources to support the market.

As the Community Banking Executive for Bank of America, Shannah Stephens does programs that bring financial health resources into the communities that the financial institution serves across the country. Stephens said that the mobile financial center is being placed in communities where there is a brick-and-mortar financial center. That way, people in the community can take advantage of all of the resources and tools that were on hand while the mobile financial center was in the community.

The site where the Bank of America mobile financial center was located in Park Forest during the three-day event was adjacent to the OAI, Inc., office at 208 Forest Blvd. Stephens said that Bank of America wanted to partner with an organization in the Chicago market where participants could benefit from financial health resources.

Bank of America is a funding partner of OAI. The focus of the organization is to provide job skills training for people who are unemployed, underemployed, with low to no income. OAI’s mission is to provide them with the kind of job training that can help them get a decent wage job. The training people receive at OAI gets them into careers in healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, logistics and distribution.

Taunya Kennedy, Program Manager at OAI, said as part of OAI’s wraparound services, participants receive financial literacy education, as well an income support program.

“It just made for a great partnership with Bank of America because they have their Better Money Habits tool that you can go online to use. We use it as part of our training for financial literacy to teach people about banking, and how to build credit and how to get ready to purchase a home,” she said.

Kennedy said when OAI found out that Bank of America had the mobile finance center, they wanted them to come to Park Forest to work with OAI so people in the community could learn more about the services Bank of America offers.

Stephens said the hope is that by being engaged in the community, Bank of America is bringing awareness about the financial institution and how it  is available to aid in their financial health. Bank of America wants to showcase the tools and resources and let people know that inside many of their centers, Operation Hope and other resources are available for them to receive free one-on-one coaching to help people reach their financial goals.

“When you need that extra help and that extra one-on-one guidance and those personalized plans, you don’t often think about the bank as the place to go and often, people don’t know where to go at all, so we want to make sure they are aware that Bank of America is that resource for them,” Stephens said.

All of the classes, which took place every hour, were strongly attended. Also, being located in a residential area provided the opportunity for people in the community to come and take part in the event. The most popular classes were the credit and money management and homeownership. Stephens said that people like to understand what they have to do to get into a home, as well as the grants and closing cost assistance that are available.

“We’re bringing financial resources to help boost the financial health of people in the communities that we serve,” Stephens said. She added that Bank of America is ensuring that it is pouring resources into the lower and moderate income communities.

For more information about OAI, visit www.oaiinc.org. For more information about Bank of America’s Better Money Habits, visit https://bettermoneyhabits.bankofamerica.com/en.

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