BofA and the San Diego Padres Work Together to Help the Homeless

Together with the San Diego Padres Foundation and ServiceNation: Mission Serve, Bank of America and Padres employees joined local active military members, veterans and their families for a day of service at Petco Park. This group spent Veterans Day volunteering to help the local homeless community. The project was a unique reverse care package project where volunteers assembled over 750 packages, which included personal hygiene items and snacks. The packages were distributed to students at The Monarch School, a local San Diego school serving homeless students,

and the San Diego Rescue Mission. This project brought together the civilian and military communities in support of worthwhile and meaningful organizations. The Mission Serve program established in 2009 seeks to establish Veterans Day as a day of service and celebration bringing together the civilian and military

communities to join together in community service. In addition to this project Bank of America employees throughout the San Diego area contributed over 15,000 hours of volunteer service in 2011.

The Corps: Building a Better Personal Future and Stronger Community

When you're in the Corps, your day starts early. If you're not on time for calisthenics at 7:00 a.m., you know there will be consequences. So you get there, and you work out with your friends, and you start another day building a better future for yourself and a stronger community for those around you. After calisthenics, you might head out for a job in green housing rehab, tree planting, or brush removal for fire prevention. Or you might head to class to continue work toward your high school diploma. Or perhaps you'll head out into your community to spend some time volunteering.

So what is this "Corps" exactly? It's a little bit Marine Corps, a little bit Peace Corps, and a whole lot of San Diego "esprit de corps" blended together to create the Urban Corps (UC) of San Diego County.

This certified local conservation corps and charter school

provides young adults ages 18-25 with a high school education and job training in the fields of conservation and recycling. It also focuses on building life skills that help individuals hold onto the jobs that their education and training earn them. The majority of youth in the program did not succeed in a traditional high school setting and they have little or no job training. Urban Corps gives them a second chance to develop new skills while improving and connecting with the San Diego community.

Bank of America has been proud to support this local charity in all of those endeavors. When the State of California and the City of San Diego recently changed

Mike Priegel, Urban Corps' CFO, has high praise for Bank of America's efforts. "The last couple of years, we really thought we were going to have a problem getting some lease financing that we needed to just survive. Bank of America stepped up to the plate, gave us a line of credit that we needed. If not for that, I don't know where we would be right now, because it really affected our operations at that time."

Employees of the bank have given money and

Angie Lucero, the bank's Community Relations Manager for San Diego, serves on the UC's Conservation Corps Board of Directors. She notes proudly that, "Bank of America has had the opportunity to invest in them, lend to them, and give to them." She sees firsthand how all of those resources combine to support the Urban Corps

Join the conversation: Learn how we're working to help strengthen communities — on the Bank of America Facebook page

Pizza and Craft Brew: A Recipe for Entrepreneurial Success in San Diego

In 1987, Gina Marsaglia was looking for a job and a way to relocate permanently from her home in Colorado to California, where she had been attending college. She heard about a pizza parlor that was about to go under in Solana Beach and she thought she would check it out.

“I walked in and it was a rainy night--it smelled like pizza and I fell in love,” Gina said. She scraped together all of the cash she had and made an offer that got her the restaurant. She invited her brother Vince out that summer and he’s been working with her ever since,

growing Pizza Port into a nationally recognized restaurant and craft brewery without losing the comfortable informality of the family-run business that attracted and kept their first customers all those years ago.

From the start, Gina counted on Bank of America for the deposit services that every business needs to process its revenues and pay its bills. But it wasn’t long before this dynamic sister-brother team identified opportunities to grow and turned to the bank they worked with every day to convert those opportunities into success stories. In 1992, a loan from Bank of America helped them lease beer brewing equipment. Vince Marsaglia recalls with a chuckle, “After signing the papers [for the beer equipment loan], we came out of the branch and I was so happy that I just screamed…and a couple of people looked at me like, ‘What did he just do?’ Without that loan, none of this would have happened.”

The combination of craft-brewed beers and delicious pizza drove sales through the roof. Within a year,

In 2010, Pizza Port celebrated another milestone—its fourth location overall and its first one within the city of San Diego.

Gina notes that, “Bank of America was monumental in making it [the San Diego location] come together. They handled the real estate, the building purchase and pulled the whole package together. I couldn’t have done that.”

Join the conversation: Learn how we're working to help strengthen communities — on the Bank of America Facebook page

It Takes a Village to Serve a Community

San Diego’s mild year-round climate delivers plenty of sunshine and little rain. Coupled with the city’s robust research, military, and biotechnology industries, the weather and the employment opportunities make the city an attractive place to live and work. Yet despite being one of the country’s wealthiest cities, around 10% of families in San Diego County live below the poverty line. Low- and moderate-income families struggle to find quality affordable housing and training that could bring them closer to self-sufficiency.

Community Housing Works (CHW) helps people and

CHW has grown into a nationally recognized leader in the fight for affordable housing by inspiring and engaging the community of San Diego to provide the effort and expertise needed to conceive, create and maintain homes and neighborhoods that people want to live in.

It starts with the basics. To create desirable homes and neighborhoods in a developed urban environment, you need to invest “sweat” equity in improving living conditions unit by unit and block by block. In addition to the work it does in the rental communities it owns, CHW mobilizes hundreds of volunteers twice a year for its FaceLift event. Dozens of Bank of America employees

Angie Lucero, Bank of America’s Community Relations Manager for Corporate Social Responsibility in San Diego, appreciates that this event does almost as much for the employees as it does for the residents. “We’ve got a wonderfully diverse, highly skilled team here at the bank. It’s always great to get them together on a weekend where the fine art of home improvement can be a great equalizer. Often we’ll start the day not knowing the person next to us, and the next thing you know one of our tellers is coaching a senior vice president on better techniques for paintbrush strokes

Home and neighborhood improvement is an important part of CHW’s mission, but money management and financing also play critical roles in its success. In these disciplines, Bank of America provides trusted financial advice that helps CHW support its existing operations and continue to grow. Donna Marie Robinson, a Vice President and Business Banking Client Manager, maintains the bank’s deposit relationship with CHW.

“We provide a suite of products and services tailored to CHW’s financial management needs, focusing on ways that help them to collect and disburse cash more efficiently. And we also make sure we take care of other

Bank of America also works to create financing solutions that meet CHW’s needs. Charmaine Atherton, Client Manager with the Bank’s Community Development Lending Group in Southern California, says that, “Financing for affordable housing is very complex, and there are a limited number of affordable housing developers that can make these projects truly succeed. Community Housing Works is one of the “best of the best” in this area, and we work hard to create competitive financing solutions that allow us to be a part of the difference that they make in our community.”

As part of the San Diego community, Bank of America takes pride in what CHW has accomplished for the area, and looks forward to sustaining the strong relationship in the months and years to come.

Join the conversation: Learn how we're working to help strengthen communities — on the Bank of America Facebook page

A big brother making a big difference

Frank Arrington was in his twenties when he joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. That was 30 years ago. Since then, Arrington has served thousands of little brothers and sisters in the San Diego community through his position on the board of directors, and his little brother has become a Big Brother, too.

Big Brothers Big Sisters has 400 affiliates across the United States helping at-risk children beat the odds through mentoring. Upon joining the program, coordinators conduct a detailed review to find out the child’s interests in order to provide the best adult match.

Match Benefits
Giving young boys without fathers in the home an older male role model helps to improve grades and provides a reason to stay away from gangs and drugs, Arrington said. “At some point, the nine-year-old [boy] who doesn’t have a father in the home, stops talking to mom. She realizes that it’s the lack of a male to help him deal with some things as he gets older.

“This is an organization that is proven to work. When I talk to the moms, they reflect on the changes in [their child’s] attitude with regard to school and their friends,” Arrington said.

Specialized programs work with kids whose parents have been deployed or whose fathers are in jail. “In San Diego, there are thousands of kids whose fathers are in prison. 70 percent of these kids will wind up there without some intervention. If we could keep a couple of those kids from going to prison, that’s a huge benefit,” he said.

Positive Role Models Make Heroes
Arrington grew up in a supportive family where he experienced the value of having a positive influence in his life, but he also understands what it means to go without. “We have 10,000 gang members in San Diego County. Those are the wrong role models,” Arrington said. “Having someone who spends time [with a child]

Because of the positive impact he is having on the San Diego community, Arrington is one of hundreds of individuals and organizations across the country last year who received Bank of America’s Local Hero award as part of the bank’s Neighborhood Excellence Initiative. “It’s a great honor to be called a hero. [Bank of America] really reaches out to the community and looks for folks that actually don’t get as much recognition,” he said.

Growing Community Service
Making a difference, in Arrington’s eyes, takes a multitude of people, each stepping forward one at a

Through his involvement in various local organizations, Arrington constantly works to create opportunities, whether it is providing scholarships through his Rotary club, or raising money to build new hospitals. “I think creating opportunity is making things a little easier for someone who may be struggling,” he said.

Arrington and his wife run a mortgage-banking firm, but are not just interested in giving home loans. “It’s incumbent upon all of us to give back to the community,

See more about Bank of America's Neighborhood Excellence Initiative.

Lean, green, clean: Investing in San Diego as a hub of clean tech

Fifty years ago, the city leaders of San Diego made a decision that turned out to be a watershed idea. The federal government gave the city the title to land that was housing then-unused Navy barracks, which were then converted into space for scientific research and product development. Property that could have become waterfront condos instead grew to house the Salk Institute and the University of California San Diego.

It is the resulting convergence of more than 50 research institutions—and intellectual capital—compressed into a 2-mile radius that is the driving force behind

San Diego’s growth as a high-tech, biotech—and now clean-tech—hub. In the not-too-distant future, for example, San Diego and the nearby Imperial Valley could become a leading producer of renewable fuels from algae and other bio sources, with implications for

the local, and global, economy. And Bank of America, since providing an early $100,000 grant for a project to analyze the potential for clean tech in San Diego, has been actively involved in supporting the growth of companies, and the creation of new jobs, in the city.

Thanks to the efforts of San Diego’s mayor as well as consortiums of scientists, companies and investors, the excitement around clean technology is palpable. The hope is that clean technology could help the country lessen its reliance on fossil fuels and transition to an economy based on renewable energy sources. But what is getting attention these days is that the emerging industry has generated new jobs, even during the economic downturn.

Lisa Bicker, Former CEO/President of Clean TECH San Diego, a non-profit industry group, explains the industry’s potential for job generation. “What’s special about clean technology,” she says, “is that you have the opportunity to solve our most pressing environmental and human challenges and, at the same time, create huge economic engines and economic prosperity.” She notes that Bank of America and other financial institutions have played a critical role in seeding early-stage companies, such as those transforming algae into fuel, making sure that they have the support and infrastructure to grow. She says, “Two years ago, a few of us went to Bank of America, which has been a tremendous partner for us here in San Diego and said,

While CleanTECH San Diego is a relatively new organization of academics, business and financial leaders, the “culture of collaboration” is not new in San Diego. Almost twenty-five years ago, a group at UC San Diego launched CONNECT to “accelerate the innovation economy” in San Diego. Today, CONNECT is still bringing together researchers, entrepreneurs and investors and helping to provide access to capital. Says CEO Duane Roth, “We help start new technology-based businesses. We figure out how to take discoveries and turn them into products.”

Today, thanks to CleanTECH San Diego, CONNECT, and

Bank of America’s involvement in San Diego’s emerging industries like biofuel is a long one, and one that spans

If all goes well, these growing companies will create new green-collar jobs. Recognizing this, various partners are

Supporting the Growth of Alternative Fuel Sources – and the Economy – in San Diego

San Diego is staking a claim in the cleantech space by growing new economic opportunities – literally. The city is working with research institutes, local governments, businesses and non-profits to support and promote the region’s potential to grow algae as an alternative fuel source.

Bank of America provided the funding to get the initiative off the ground. We worked to develop the mega-region initiative to assess shortfalls in workforce

skills and infrastructure and support investment in the area’s long-termeconomic vitality. San Diego’s biofuel industry now provides 410 direct jobs and $108 million in total economic activity annually. Investing in clean

technology to spur regional economic growth – that’s the opportunity effect.