Armed Forces Bank and Veterans Community Project launch “Heroes Round Up” to support Veterans

The program enables banking customers to easily transform spare change into life-changing services.

Today, Armed Forces Bank (AFB) launched a creative new program to enable new and existing customers to help Veterans experiencing homelessness regain the dignity of home.

Through the Heroes Round Up program, you can elect to round up your debit card purchases to the nearest dollar with the difference becoming an easy donation to Veterans Community Project (VCP). So, for example, your $3.64 cup of coffee purchase would be rounded up to $4.00 with the $0.36 difference going toward supporting at-risk and in-crisis Veterans. 

The program is another option for you to share in our mission to fix Veteran homelessness. Funds raised will support our mission to provide safe, stable housing and wraparound services for formerly homeless Veterans. Our VCP Villages include 240-square-foot homes and on-site case management to help residents overcome challenges and work toward permanent housing.

AFB Senior Vice President and Military Regional Executive Tom McLean explained why the partnership is important to the bank. He said, “Everything we do is about making life easier and better for service members, Veterans and their families, no matter where they are stationed. We believe we are uniquely qualified to do that, because 75% of our staff are military-affiliated, meaning they or someone they love has served.”

AFB’s partnership with VCP builds on that philosophy. VCP was founded by a group of combat Veterans determined to do better for others like them transitioning back to civilian life. The group had met while independently volunteering and each saw homelessness as a substantial, but fixable, problem.

Their solution to that problem has become a leading national model. Since welcoming the first residents at VCP of Kansas City in 2018, our model has demonstrated a radically effective 85% success rate in transitioning Veterans from homelessness to permanent housing. We now have three additional locations, in St. Louis, Missouri, Longmont, Colorado, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and we’re currently expanding to Glendale, Arizona, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

AFB, meanwhile, has been serving military customers and their families in all 50 states and around the world for more than a century since its founding in 1907. The bank has branches in military installations across the country, and its civilian sister bank Academy Bank has branches in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri.

Its headquarters and flagship branch are located near Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. The branch manager, Tina Farr, is a 43-year employee of AFB who has decades-long relationships with military customers and a deep understanding of their unique banking needs.

“We take care of service members, their spouses, their kids, their grandkids,” said Farr, fighting back tears talking about her role. “This work is so important to me because of what they sacrifice for us and for our community.”

Farr and the AFB team are excited to tell the community about the Heroes Round Up program, which gives customers an easy-to-manage option to use their spare change to transform the lives of Veterans. The bank has committed to matching a total of $5,000 in contributions and is also volunteering at VCP locations across the country during National Volunteer Month in April.

To celebrate the launch of Heroes Round Up, VCP Co-Founder and Chief Project Officer Brandonn Mixon visited Farr in Leavenworth to open a new bank account and enroll in the program.

“At VCP, we like to say that we give hand-ups rather than hand-outs—and now, we do round-ups, too,” said Mixon. “A big thank you to Armed Forces Bank for having our back and the backs of our Veterans.”

You can learn more, open a Heroes Round Up account, and build homes for Veterans in need today by visiting afbank.com.