Financial First Responders
Heroes are among us. They’ve appeared in both predictable and surprising places over the past two years. From the medical professionals who nursed patients back to health to the public officials who walked the fine line of hard truths, from the classroom teachers forced to muster their own courage to help the state’s children keep going to the front-line workers who kept us all fed and clothed and flush with life’s necessities.
And then there were the bankers. Little attention has been paid to the financial first responders and not nearly enough praise given to these dedicated men and women who collectively kept the country’s small business community afloat. They worked grueling hours, they explained complicated rules, they pivoted, they fought, and they cried right along with their clients—men and women just like you. They deserve a collective thank you far beyond this small sampling of stories straight from the battlefield.
Playtime Had to Wait
Seventeen years ago, Mike and Lorie Lentz were both working in the local school system—Mike as an occupational therapist and Lorie as a special education teacher. They thought there must be a better solution for delivering their services to the kids who needed them most and for establishing a direct line of communication with parents. They opened PlayWorks to provide occupational, physical, and speech therapy to kids in need, and the business has grown to a preschool with 50 students and 15 therapists working in two clinics. Everything they do is for the kids.
So when a global pandemic threatened to make very sick the same kids they worked every day to make better, it was a hard stop. “In both of our environments—the preschool and the clinics—we’re dealing with things that are most precious: people’s children. And the thought of making someone’s child ill, well, it just wasn’t something we could chance,” Mike Lentz says. The couple closed the school and the clinics before any mandates were handed down, without any idea how long the closure might last, how they would pay their employees, or if there would still be a PlayWorks to return to when it was over.
“We just had to keep everyone safe. The rest, we knew we would figure out,” Lentz says. The couple had worked with a big, national bank when they first opened PlayWorks. It didn’t go well, and they’d since established a long-standing relationship with First United Bank & Trust in Morgantown that proved very valuable in such unprecedented times. They first reached out to the bank to get the wheels in motion for a second mortgage on their home to keep the business afloat if it came to that. Luckily, the bank’s Community Relationship Manager, Jason Schnopp, had a better idea.
“He said he thought we would qualify for this special assistance that the government was rolling out for businesses during the pandemic,” Lentz says. “As a business owner, I was very skeptical that anyone was going to hand me that kind of money. We quickly realized that Jason was going to help make that happen, and it meant that we were going to be able to continue keeping everyone safe and not feel like we had to rush back to opening until we were sure we could keep doing that in person.”
Schnopp and his team sprang into action, and he says their clients became like extended family. It became their mission to help alleviate the suffering that their clients were going through and to help them succeed. “At the end of the day, people bank with people. It was important to us to keep it personal, to be passionate, and to find a solution no matter the cost or the time involved. My team at First United Bank & Trust did just that,”
Loans gave business owners like the Lentzes peace of mind. It also gave them time to consider ways that their businesses could be better. “Jason made it possible for us to take the downtime to improve our services and the environment we deliver them in.” Lentz says, “and to come out of the pandemic when we were comfortable to do so, with our best foot forward. I just can’t say enough good things about him.”
MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S WINTER 2021 ISSUE
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