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Local Bank Employees Provide Holiday Gifts For West Philadelphia Homeless

By Mark Abrams

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Volunteers from a bank with a strong local presence made a special holiday delivery today to a homeless shelter in West Philadelphia.

Led by Dan Fitzpatrick, regional president and CEO of Citizens Bank (below), volunteers dressed in green aprons and Santa hats carried boxes filled with "Stockings of Love" stuffed with small toys, games, and other goodies for children and women who live at or are served by the People's Emergency Center, on North 39th Street near Lancaster Avenue.

"It's not just the elements of the gifts that are inside, but knowing that the people in your community care enough to spend the time to purchase them, put them together, and present them to you," said Farah Jimenez, the shelter's chief executive, as she surveyed the 200 stockings containing items for people of various ages.

stockings ceo _mabrams
(Citizens Bank regional CEO Dan Fitzpatrick helps put gifts under a tree. Credit: Mark Abrams.)

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Fitzpatrick, the bank president, says the project is a truly volunteer effort that involves so many employees throughout the bank's Delaware Valley offices.

"Collections are occurring at all these branches," he tells KYW Newsradio.  "We had literally dozens and dozens of colleagues who are volunteering at Citizens Bank to put the stockings together."

Jimenez says 68 families are living at the shelter at the moment, and another 39 families are receiving services through the center and living in transitional neighborhood housing.

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