Who: Commerce Bank
Home Base: Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Year Founded: 1973
Sunday morning in Gloucester Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia, is like Sunday morning in most places. Blackwood-Clementon Road, which churns during the week with harried commuters, feels eerily quiet. The strip mall there looks deserted. Even Laurel Hill Bible Church, across the street, is calm, since the congregation has already filed in.
The only sign of life is at the corner bank, where seven people are huddled in the ATM alcove between the door and the lobby. Curiously enough, they’re not using the ATM. They look as though they expect the lobby to open at any minute. Which is to say, they look ridiculous. Don’t they know it’s Sunday? Don’t they realize they’re at a bank?
But at 9:50 AM, something amazing happens: The bank’s doors open, and branch manager Regina McGee ushers the group inside. Darryl Pettus, a 33-year-old grocery-store clerk, deposits money into his ailing sister’s account so that she can pay her health insurance. Before long, there are unshaven men in Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirts emptying sandwich bags filled with change into the coin-counting machine and children dressed for Sunday school comparing tongues stained red by the bank’s cherry-flavored lollipops.
