When it comes to birthdays and anniversaries, usually the subject of celebration receives gifts. In the case of Paragon Bank of Oxford for it’s 5th anniversary, the organization is deciding to give back to the community by donating to six local non-profits.

“We’re celebrating our 5th anniversary, but we’re also celebrating these non-profits and all non-profits here in Lafayette County that do a lot of great work,” said Kin Kinney, Market President of Paragon Bank.

The bank was founded in 2005 in Memphis, Tennessee with four offices in the area. Since it began, Paragon has committed to servicing the community through donations and volunteerism. Paragon Bank has also served on boards, committees of local non-profits, service clubs, chambers and charity organizations.

Paragon Bank of Oxford recently sponsored a small tennis tournament to benefit the Oxford Boys & Girls Club and has been involved with The Pantry of Oxford & Lafayette County.

Paragon even encourages employees to volunteer by allotting them paid time off outside of vacation hours to get involved with their community through the Assisting the Community Through Service program. In 2020, over 85% of employees take advantage of the ACTS program and spent about 939 hours serving the community and impacted 45 organizations.

The Memphis office decided to give back to non-profit organizations for their 5th anniversary in 2015. After conversations with Paragon Bank CEO and President Robert Shaw, the Oxford offices decided to follow the model with a few changes.

Paragon will donate $5 in a participants honor to one of the six local organizations working to make Oxford a better place including United Way of Oxford-Lafayette County, CASA of Lafayette County, More Than a Meal, Oxford Lovepacks, The Pantry and the Wesley Foundation of Ole Miss.

“We’ve think we’ve chosen six that have done a lot of good work and reach out in different areas and different parts of the community,” said Kinney. “We’ve tried to help a large base of the community through those six.”

The company’s staff are handing out donation cards to clients and non-clients alike with a code and link to the donation page.

Once logged onto the donation page, the recipient can scan the list of organizations, input the one-time code and write the organization they would like the donation to go out to. Once you submit, the bank will make a $5 donation in your name.

The campaign will run through the end of the year. Once it is over, Paragon Bank will tally up the donations and issue checks to each non-profit.

“There’s still a lot of organizations we didn’t partner with this time, but hopefully we can do something with them in the future,” said Kinney.

When asked if Paragon Bank of Oxford would donate $6 for their 6th anniversary, Kinney laughed but said the fifth year just happened to be a good round number and there were originally five organizations instead of six.

No concrete answer on if the campaign will come back around for the 10th anniversary, but Paragon Bank will continue it’s service to the community, he said.

“We will continue every year to be involved in some fashion whether it’s this type of program or something else,” said Kinney. “We’ll always try to be involved with the community and help.”

For more information about Paragon Bank of Oxford, visit www.bankparagon.com.