Employee Loan Program Turns 25 by Erika Meiners We’ve seen many programs come and go at Crest Foods, but there’s one program that has been consistently popu- lar for the last 25 years – the Employee Loan Program. The reason this program was started back in January of 1993 is the same reason that we have the program today: Crest had a strong concern for the well-being of its em- ployees, and wanted to provide a program that would give them an opportunity to get a loan when they needed it. Another program that was popular in 1993 was The Pop Fund. This was set up to use proceeds from our vending machines to send flowers to employees who were in the hospital or for employees going through hardships. We still use this fund (Benevolence Fund) for the same things today, but 25 years ago they noticed that there were many situations that put people into financial difficulty, but weren’t the type of hardship situation that the fund was set up to help with. Thus, the idea for the Employee Loan Program was born. Crest Foods helped to set up and co-sign on loans of up to $5000.00 for employees through the First State Bank of Shannon. Employees could get a loan for 1 of the 5 reasons: Purchase of primary residence/home improvements; purchase of main form of transportation; education expenses; unreimbursed medical expenses; or a financial dif- ficulty. Everything is still the same today, except they initially put a cap on the available funds. What started as a fund of $150,000, quickly got bumped to $200,000 just 1 year later due to its popularity. Employees were put on waiting lists and had to wait until there was enough money paid off from other employees until they could get their loan processed. In just the first 2 months alone, Crest had processed 32 loans for employees totaling $120,000! Somewhere along the way, the cap was eliminated and we did away with the waiting list. Not much else about the program has changed over the years with exception to the administrative process. Through my research, the origi- nal administrator, Mary Bonnell of the Accounting Department, continually wrote about fax machines and the won- derful world of technology! I’m sure in another 25 years, someone will read this and laugh about how nice it is to transmit loan files through a secure website, but it’s really become a quick and stream-lined process thanks to ditch- ing that once beloved fax machine! To date Crest Foods has co-signed on about 950 loans with employees! It makes it easy to keep a program going when you see how many people it helps, and we look forward to continuing this employee benefit for years to come. Thanks to those who thought to start it up 25 years ago.
The R&D Lab at Crest saved their milk jugs instead of sending them over to the recycle bin for a project over at the Franklin Grove Library this summer. Mandi Kersten (Cus- tomer Service) hauled them all over and helped make this milk jug igloo for one of the themes for their reading program. Their summer reading program is “Reading Takes You Everywhere” so they came up with 4 stations for their magic bus to take the kids: the igloo is located at the Artic Location, and they will also have Under the Sea, Dino Jungle, and the Franklin Grove Reading Rocket.
The ponds at the West Warehouse have long been the home to numerous families of geese. Ben Fichter (Sanitation A) was able to capture this picture of mama and goslings as they enjoyed their time on the waters of Crest Foods.
July, August & September 2018 Crest Ink 13
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