Head of the Class: ANDREA LEWIS

Growing up in a small town often means doing without a lot of the amenities common to the big city. But when it comes to role models, Andrea Lewis had everything she needed and more to form an early attitude of service to others. And it all stemmed from the Sunday table of her late grandmother, Ella Mae Hogan, whose commitment to the less fortunate still strikes a chord.

“We would eat at her house on Sundays, and I’ll tell you how a little goes a long way,” Lewis said. “She would cook every Sunday for our family, but then she’d have people coming in off the street like friends and other friends and other relatives and she was always encouraging them to eat.

“As a small child, I saw how Granny doesn’t say no to anybody, and she doesn’t turn anybody away. Growing up with that mentality, I think I have that same concept where I will give the shirt off my back. If it’s going to help you more than it’s going to help me, then why not?”

Lewis, assistant vice president, community outreach business development with First Security Bank, joined the company as a teller in 2001 while attending the University of Arkansas. She said the bank’s focus on community service is one big reason why she’s spent the majority of her career with the organization.

“I love the culture here,” she said. “I love that we are a good, strong community bank. I love our concept of being only in Arkansas. Not that we won’t help you if you are outside the state, but we’re focusing on the fact that we can only be as good as our communities are. There’s a lot of work to do right here in Arkansas, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”

Among her long list of community service activities – which also includes the Food Bank of Arkansas, AR Kids Read and Little Rock Chamber of Commerce — Lewis said she is most enthusiastic about the opportunity to improve financial literacy in the community.

“I come from a family who was strong in education,” she said. “My dad, Alfred Hogan Sr., just retired recently after 43 years in education. He was a superintendent for a number of years. My mom, Nancy, same thing; she retired from Midsouth Community College in West Memphis, after many years there as a director for TRIO Student Support Services.

“Stephens Elementary School, they are my diamond and where I started financial literacy education, talking about the importance of kids saving money. I wanted to start talking to them about the importance of financial literacy because my parents talked about saving money in the household, they talked about paying your bills on time and different things like that. But I understood that everybody didn’t have that growing up.”

Over time, Lewis said, First Security expanded to include four inschool banks. Meanwhile, other community organizations began reaching out to her to bring in her financial literacy talks. One of those groups was Our House.

“The bank was doing some classes, and when I came onboard, I was able to join in with that,” she said. “[At Our House] we’re teaching the homeless and near-homeless about budgeting and saving money.”

These efforts eventually led the bank to adopt the Bank On program, an initiative aimed at unbanked and underbanked populations to help them start a savings program and get into a checking account. Our House provided an ideal target audience for the initiative.

“Bank On has really helped Our House help individuals who may have had a checking account in the past and perhaps made some poor decisions,” she said. “We are now allowing people to open First Steps checking, which I refer to as second chance checking, through the Bank On program.”

The more she worked with the organization and its clientele, the more convinced Lewis was of the essential nature of its work, leading her to take a seat on Our House’s board of directors.

“I love how Our House gives a hand up and not necessarily a hand out,” she said. “They help people get educated. They’re helping people find jobs. They empower people to save their own money, so when it is time for you to leave, you are self-sufficient. If you’re not able to sustain yourself, you’re going to go out there, and it’s going to be the same mistakes that were made before.”

Lewis said she has a particular sense of pride serving Our House at this point in its history, given the physical expansion currently going on.

“They’re turning people away because they are maxed out; they’re filled to capacity,” she said. “It’s exciting and very rewarding to know you’ve able to help with this expansion now, because that just means more and more people are going to be able to be served.

“And hopefully, when these people are served, they’ll get back on their feet, they’re going out sharing their story to people in similar situations like they were, and it’s like the domino effect. Now they can see somebody struggling and steer them in a different direction; they’re able to take their experience and help somebody else.”