This month, the Little Rock branch of the Federal Reserve Bank reopened – not to service bank customers, but students. The e-Stem High Public Charter School started its semester last Monday in two newly-renovated buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

But that’s nothing new for this innovative school. Two years ago, they chose a former newspaper building as their first campus. The downtown school quickly had a waiting list of over 1,000 students, which was far more than they could accommodate.

Southern Bancorp CDC, which has provided renovation assistance and financing to other public schools, bought the old Federal Reserve Bank in 2009 and is now leasing the building to e-Stem Public Charter Schools. Despite mechanical and plumbing obstacles, the building’s proximity, historic finishes, and ability to be renovated to fit current educational needs made it a perfect fit for e-Stem’s expansion.

Jeff Frazier has joined Southern Bancorp-DeSoto County as senior lender. Frazier joins Southern with 29 years of banking experience, most recently serving in several executive positions at Community Bank, North Mississippi.

Frazier previously held several top-level positions at Trustmark National Bank in DeSoto County and Jackson, and also served as a bank examiner for the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency.

LeAnn Lambers, marketing director for Southern Bancorp, talks with concerned Poinsett County citizens on July 15 at the Trumann mayor’s office regarding at July 19 trip to Helena-West Helena to see what the bank has done in the community. The bank has worked to assist the community in economic development. Community members would like to see the implementation of such an economic development plan in Poinsett County.

Southern Bancorp has played a large role in assisting Helena-West Helena with economic development. They want to do the same for Poinsett County.

As a community development bank, Southern Bancorp is chartered to change lives for the better.

Few community banks can claim to have been started by a future first lady. Perhaps equally few have initial investors who agreed to give up financial returns in exchange for social returns.

Southern Bancorp is an unusual institution, a community development bank with a hybrid model of providing traditional banking services while pursuing the higher civic goal of spurring economic development in low-to-moderate-income areas.

Eco in practice

Architect Doug Thornton’s office building in Hernando itself represents a recycling project: It was built in the 1950s by the Baptist Association.

Old wood was put in a chipper for landscaping or given to farmers for animal shelters. All the old fixtures, appliances, plumbing, doors and windows were donated to Habitat for Humanity. Much of the original brick was left on; recycled copper is used for a countertop.

The building is insulated with soy-based spray foam and the sound batts are made from recycled jeans. All interior paint is 98 percent light-reflective; there are bamboo and cork floors. There’s a “sunlight chimney” to admit light and ventilation, and the exit signs use no electricity.

Employees of Southern Bancorp recently gave savings lessons to elementary students as part of the American Bankers Association Education foundation’s Teach Children to Save Program.

Southern employees joined thousands of bankers across the country that traded in their balance sheets for blackboards to help fill the need for financial education.

HERNANDO — Southern Bancorp executives and employees broke ground recently for the bank’s full-service LEED-certified branch in Hernando.

The branch at 790 Byhalia Road is scheduled to open in early 2011.

Southern currently has two loan production offices in DeSoto County — one in Hernando and the other in Southaven.

Blytheville, AR (July 1, 2010) Linda O’Guin, Executive Director of Westminster Village of the Mid-South, an affordable, active retirement community, will announce the receipt of a $25,000 grant from the Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation to purchase a handicapped-accessible mini-bus, which will enable Westminster to establish a transportation program for residents that will improve access to health care, shopping and community events for senior residents, at the July celebration for Village residents, scheduled for 5 p.m. today, Thursday, July 1.

BLYTHEVILLE, Ark., June 30, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Theresa Metcalf has been telling everyone about her new home, and the grant program that helped her get into the home.

Ms. Metcalf, a 41-year-old single mother of six, heard about the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas’s (FHLB Dallas’s) Homebuyer Equity Leverage Partnership (HELP) program through her job as a substitute teacher for a Head-Start program in Blytheville, Arkansas.

Three weeks ago, we posted profiles of 25 social ventures on this blog and asked readers to vote for the one they felt held the most promise. The profiles were part of our second annual round-up of businesses from across the country that aim to both turn a profit and do social good.

Now, nearly 4,500 votes later, the results are in.