As COVID shutdowns took huge bites out of organizations’ critical funding in nearly every industry, one financial institution knew they had to lend a helping hand.

Hopkinsville, KY-based Planters Bank, which operates 12 branches in the area, wanted to help local organizations survive the pandemic. It was their seventh Season of Giving drive, but the 2020 iteration would be devoted specifically to COVID relief.

Planters has worked with nearby Williams Advertising (asi/360402) for the past five years on this fourth-quarter philanthropic project; branches normally sell branded food gifts with proceeds going to nonprofits of their choosing. But recent health fears meant consumables wouldn’t be the best option this time around.

So Planters took a different approach in 2020: Each branch picked an arts, recreation, charitable or educational organization to benefit, including theaters, libraries, museums, parks and even a PTO and a Kiwanis chapter, and created gifts out of locally sourced home goods.

Gift sets with Kentucky-themed watercolor art included a locally made soy candle and matching tea towel.

“They took a look at local organizations that are near and dear to their hearts and that they want people to be able to enjoy again,” says Sarah Whitaker, Williams Advertising owner and client success manager, who started working on the project in late spring 2020. “We wanted a design that would be applicable to people in Kentucky and Western Tennessee, where Planters has customers.”

The Williams Advertising team and Planters Bank decided on a hand-poured, all-natural soy candle from Clarksville Candle Company and paired it with a matching flour sack tea towel, both nestled in a round gift tin for easy shipment. They created Kentucky- and Tennessee-specific sets, with designs by Williams’ own graphic designer Jessica Bueno, who painted the custom watercolor art.

This set has custom Tennessee-themed watercolors.

In all, Williams Advertising fulfilled orders for 1,400 sets; branches sold them inside their locations as well as online. At the end of the initiative, Planters Bank had donated $30,000 to the 12 local organizations through sales of the gift sets. With the $5,000 that the bank gave to each beneficiary before the drive began, the total donated for COVID relief was close to $90,000.

Jessica Bueno, graphic designer at Williams Advertising, paints the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, TN, in watercolors for the Tennessee candle and tea towel gift sets.

“The bank bought all the products outright,” says Whitaker. “So, when someone bought a $20 gift, $20 was donated. Planters really wanted to help people in need, like they do every year. All the credit goes to the bank headquarters in Hopkinsville.”

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