Subcontent Archive | Page 3 of 16

Click to hear Sharon and Steph's story

SHARON: Hi I'm Sharon Bagonstose. STEPH: Hi I'm Steph Fenstermacher and Sharon and I are co-owners of the Buttered Crumb LLC here in New Tripoli. SHARON: The Buttered Crumb specializes in old-fashioned, made-from-scratch baked goods. STEPH: Things like molasses cakes, shoe-fly pies, sticky buns, different crumb cakes. SHARON: Cookies, kiffles, you name it, we make all kinds of baked goods. STEPH: Some things had changed at the company I was working for and my sister was talking about early retirement and we just decided to start a bakery out of the basement of my home. SHARON: My sister had approached me about this idea about opening up a home-owned bakery. Growing up in a large family, I was the oldest of five children. We did a lot of cooking for our family. STEPH: I didn't grow up in this business unless you count cooking for a family of seven. I was attracted to I guess just naturally it's something that I've always enjoyed doing. SHARON: I also loved home ec. class when I was in high school, to this day I'm still using some of the recipes that I had over 40 years ago. STEPH: One of the things that we're really proud of is our involvement with the Lowhill Food Pantry. We realized that we were making 500 Christmas cookies to feed about 40 people. So one of us got the braniac idea that we should contact the Food Pantry and see if we could donate those cookies. As of last year we were making over 2,000 for the Food Pantry at Christmas time. Anytime we've had tips over the last five years we've donated those, we don't keep those for ourselves, it's just something that we give back. SHARON: One of the things we got involved in a couple years ago is the Great Allentown Fair. Two years ago we started sponsoring one of the baking contests. This year we will be judging the Shoe Fly Pie Contest, so we're really excited about participating in that. STEPH: When we first started this business, we started out of my house. SHARON: And we were amazed at how fast we grew. We outgrew her home probably at least two years ago. We started looking for properties and we went with the New Tripoli Bank. We love the fact that it's a local bank. STEPH: New Tripoli Bank has been critical to getting us to the place we're at, giving us a mortgage for the building we're standing in. SHARON: We recently took out a small loan and the loan officer actually came here. It was such a busy day for us he offered to stop in here and have us finalize the papers and sign everything, which to me was wonderful that he saved me a trip. STEPH: New Tripoli Bank I really appreciate the fact that they give you a personal touch. You walk into the tellers and they know you by name. Or if you go through the drive thru it's "hey Steph how you doing today, when's the business opening?" SHARON: We were grateful to our friends, our family, our customers, the bank, everybody that I've just mentioned has helped us grow this business to a point that we never thought it would be. STEPH: In an industry that typically has a high fail ratio, they've taken a chance on us and just want to say thanks to New Tripoli Bank because we wouldn't here without them either. And one of the things that I love the most and actually my puppies love the most is when we go through the drive thru they each get a dog biscuit.

Click to hear the Fire Company's story

I am Bill McQuilken, I am a firefighter with the New Tripoli Fire Company, and I'm also President of the Fire Company. My name is Gary Kuntz, Jr. I'm the current Fire Chief at the Community Fire Company of New Tripoli. I served as Deputy Chief under Chief Peter Christ for the past 11 years and this is my first year as Fire Chief. BILL: The New Tripoli Fire Company actually started with a bunch of guys that got together in 1944 to discuss putting together a fire company. We received two army vehicles which we converted into fire trucks. Lehigh County commissioners approved the organization and we became the Community Fire Company of New Tripoli. GARY: We currently operate out of a brand new, state-of-the-art facility. We've incorporated an EMS unit into our facility; we have EMS coverage 24/7. We are the main hub of EMS and fire service for Lynn Township. We're doing very well with approximately 30 firefighters on our roster. We currently have five junior firefighters and we continue to grow as an organization. BILL: One of the most difficult things for all organizations across the United States has been dealing with the COVID pandemic. As a fire company, we were no longer able to raise funds, such as our annual "Guns & Cash Bash," hall rentals, and different types of events, which are vital to keeping our equipment maintained and keeping us afloat. We were able to still work through this, through different types of fundraisers, and attract some new firefighters to the organization, and continue to serve the residents of all of our surrounding communities without any interruptions. GARY: Our organization has served Lynn Township and the Northwestern community since May of 1945 in cooperation with the New Tripoli Bank. I know some of our original founders were highly involved with the Bank and the Fire Department BILL: They were there to help establish us, not only back in 1945 but all through the years. They've helped guide us financially, they've supported us with our fundraisers, they supported us over the years with the purchase of our trucks and our buildings. GARY: Our new building, our apparatus, gear for our members; the bank has been a big part of our organization since the beginning. BILL: I've had quite many meetings with Brenda in the customer service office since I've become president. She's guided me through many different types of issues and I had to be placed on lots of different accounts, and the bank has been of wonderful help. GARY: So, again, I would like to thank the New Tripoli Bank for being a partner with our organization, for being there for us in time of need. Whether it's monetary need, advice, just being a vital part of our community and helping our organization grow and flourish, and helping our members to provide fire protection for the Northwestern community.

Click to hear Jenae's story

My name is Jenae Holtzhafer and I'm the founder and executive director of the Kindness Project. The Kindness Project is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves children that are experiencing foster care by providing tangible goods and also enrichment opportunities for free. We are 100% donation-based and volunteer-run. We have over 100 volunteers and we've been able to serve over a thousand children across eastern Pennsylvania. The Kindness Project started in the end of 2017, when my husband and I started licensing to be foster parents. Our original intention was to create a foster closet which would have all the things kids need when they go into foster care. What we realized through the process is that families who are fostering them many times don't have the extra financial resources. We thought that this was something we should try to pursue; to provide support for families who really want to do this and not have the financial burden stop them from saying yes to taking children into their safe and structured homes. So in October of 2017, we began collecting donations in our dining room and little did we know that starting something out of plastic tubs in our dining room would lead to having a two-acre property that would allow for so much more for these children that we are serving. And what we see ourselves as now is a foster care community center, not just a foster closet, so we're really excited about the special events we're going to start having; free tutoring, free piano lessons, we've partnered with community organizations to provide free horseback riding and free swimming lessons. So many things that children typically don't have an opportunity to do when they are in the foster care system. As a small non-profit with limited resources and limited volunteers, we really needed to work with somebody who could make that process easy. We worked with other banks in the past and it was just so impersonal, so difficult at times, and when we met with New Tripoli, we walked out of there feeling so relieved that we'd finally found a bank that was just easy. We set up our accounts, the mobile app is fantastic; I barely have to go over physically to the bank which is huge for me because my time is limited. I love that i can just deposit checks through my phone late at night. If I do have to go to the bank, they're always so pleasant and they treat me like somebody they've known for 10 years. We really love New Tripoli not just for the ease of using their services but also that they truly care about us. We run a mini golf tournament every fall and they always sign up to be part of that, which just shows their commitment to us as a non-profit. That to us means the world because I'm not sure that there's a whole lot of other banks that would do something like that for a small nonprofit and so we could not be happier having chosen New Tripoli Bank as our bank partner.

Click to hear the Millers' story

ANDREW: Hello, I'm Andrew Miller.
JOHN: I'm Jonathan Miller, together we operate Blue Mountain Farms. Here at Blue Mountain Farms, we are a wholesale greenhouse, we sell annual potted plants to the Eastern Pennsylvania/New Jersey area. We sell to garden centers, fundraisers, and churches.
ANDREW: We grow seasonal plants, we start off the year with tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, lilies, a lot of that product goes into the local churches. Going into the Fall, where we raise a lot of the hardy chrysanthemums. After the Fall we move into Christmas season which we carry poinsettias, we also do some fresh greenery items which people can put outside, and some of that goes on to the cemeteries as well.
JOHN: My grandfather immigrated from Switzerland, and he started in East Hanover, New Jersey. He was there for many years, and then he moved the business here to Schuylkill County in 1974.
ANDREW: So, I grew up in the greenhouse business at a very young age, working with my grandparents and my parents. There's always something to do on the farm.
JOHN: In the last 10 years we have tripled in size. We have 180,000 square feet inside greenhouse space, and about 12 acres of outside production.
ANDREW: I've grown to enjoy the business. When you're in the greenhouse business, you see your product growing, and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. JOHN: When COVID hit, that was right before the Easter of 2020, we lost all of our sales to all the churches and all the garden centers had to be closed in the state of Pennsylvania. ANDREW: Every business has its hardships with the supply chain issues, fertilizers, plastic containers, soil, labor, just trying to battle all those things in the last couple years, it's been a lot. JOHN: We were very thankful for the PPP Loan to get us through that time. I worked with New Tripoli Bank and John Hemak, it was really easy and seamless. ANDREW: They try to understand your personal needs. New Tripoli really doesn't nickel and dime you with all the little fees JOHN: With the ATM, I can bank at any time. Sometimes I drop off the deposit at 10 o' clock at night. I can do a lot of stuff from the mobile app and if I need to, the bank is there to help me. ANDREW: I personally used them for my home mortgage loan and they were very easy to work with. They tend to listen to you more and understand the roles of farming. They're just a small community, and that's one of the features I really like about the bank. JOHN: New Tripoli Bank is just easy to deal with, they understand your business and they will listen to you.

Click to hear Maria's story

My name is Maria Ortiz, I'm the co-owner and project manager of Zitro & Roni Real Estate. Our company is a real estate firm focused majorly in renovation and construction at the moment. So, we started out in the commercial space with strip malls and office spaces here in the Allentown area. A couple years ago, we had a really good opportunity to start with our first residential multi-family project which was the renovation of 12 apartment units in Hazleton. Since then, we've gotten a lot of really great opportunities that require a little bit more time and resources. So we're currently working on two apartment buildings in the Hazleton area and these are all going to be brand new apartments. With our projects we have been able to employ a lot of vendors and contractors in our local community and through working with these projects our goal is to revitalize a lot of these overlooked spaces. New Tripoli Bank was able to gift us with trust and confidence since the beginning of our relationship. As we started to grow and expand outside the Lehigh Valley area, we were able to keep this trust and confidence even when we expanded beyond the local area they cover and move into Hazleton. Working with New Tripoli Bank and our lender Robert Kern has been great. I can recall our most recent transaction—it was a really big investment for us and working with the seller got a little bit difficult and New Tripoli Bank and Bob Kern were able to step in to offer the seller the reassurance they needed to help us move along with the deal and, you know, settle as planned. We wanted to work with a bank that saw us as more than just one more in a big list of clients and with New Tripoli Bank we were able to get this from the beginning of our relationship up until, you know, our most recent transaction. And with New Tripoli Bank we truly felt seen and understood which is something that in previous relationships with other Banks we were not really getting. So if you're looking to work with a bank that truly sees you and your business as a key part of your local community we definitely recommend working with New Tripoli. [Music]

Click to hear Kevin's story

Hello, I'm Kevin Campbell. I'm president and CEO of Barry Isset & Associates. We are a multi-discipline engineering firm headquartered in the Lehigh Valley. We have nine offices throughout the eastern half of Pennsylvania. As a multi-discipline engineering firm, we have about 10 different disciplines that we provide, from survey, geotechnical engineering, environmental through civil, land development, structural engineering, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, we also do forensic engineering wastewater traffic and our biggest group in the company is now our field services group, which currently numbers about 80 people. At Barry Isset & Associates, we pride ourselves on being part of the community. We get to see our work every day as we drive around throughout the Lehigh Valley: Dorney Park, Blue Mountain Ski Area, Air Products, Olympus, the ArtsQuest Center, and many projects at Deca Battery. Similar to New Tripoli Bank, we consider ourselves a community engineering firm. We're involved with the volunteer center, for several years we've done projects at the Salvation Army, we do clean up with the conservation district. Every project that we are involved in improves the quality of life. We're now celebrating our 45th year in business and for the first time in 45 years we own a building! It would not have been possible without New Tripoli Bank. When we needed to purchase the land, we reached out to John Hemak and John Hayes a New Tripoli Bank and we arranged to have a loan to purchase the land. About four or five years later, when it came time to start building the building, we reached out at that time to several banks, but in the end New Tripoli Bank was the most aggressive and most flexible and we really appreciate the confidence and trust that they had in us to loan us the money to build this beautiful building. New Tripoli Bank prides themselves on being a community bank; they're not some huge commercial national bank. When you reach out to them, you sit down, you have a very friendly conversation and the whole process is very streamlined.

Click to hear Thomas' story

My name is Laurie Wuchter, my husband Dan and I own the business of the Allentown Fairground Farmers Market. We have over 60 vendors here at the farmers market, bringing mom and pop businesses here to the local area. We're open every week, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Allentown. This has been here since 1953. I started here in 1994 with a flower stand of all things and met my husband Dan and fell in love and the rest is history. He was one of the first vendors here in the Farmers Market as a fresh poultry business and then one day he decided he was going to do the rotisserie oven, so he sold it to Mr. Bill and he came down an opened Dan's barbecue.
With repairs in the Farmers Market, my husband and I were struggling. A couple years back we had gotten loans in different places and the interest was so high. We met with an amazing gentleman, Robert Kern, that works at New Tripoli Bank. What he did was he gave us a consolidated loan at a great interest rate—he made it affordable. We told him what we could make the payment at, and he just helped us so much, it was just awful—we were drowning.
The farmers market is an amazing place to shop, from candy, to crafts, to all the ethnic foods we have in here. The meats, the seafood, produce, everything—it's an amazing place to shop. We have different businesses here in the farmers market: we've got Stoltzfus Amish Deli, Culinary Experts where you can come in and get prepared meals to go, Baringers Meats, who actually slaughter their own products and bring them in here to the farmers market. You don't have to worry about how long it's been in that case! And we've got Mr. Bills, all his stuffed burgers and stuffed chicken breasts, Southern Delights at the east end of the market, we're very proud of having Mary Ann Donuts here in the farmers market, we have Amish Village Bake Shop, we have Vallos Bakery, just so many great merchants here. You have foods of the Mediterranean, that's here every week making everything from scratch, we have Korean food, Vietnamese, she's an amazing chef from Vietnam, all under one roof.
We pride ourselves in a lot of community activities for local children. We're very involved with community events like basketball tournaments throughout the area and providing them with foods and stuff, but we try to support all the local non-profits, all the people that are looking for donations. We do stuff with Dollars for Scholars to try to promote them to sell gift certificates and give them money back for their different band classes or trips that they're taking. We try to do anything we can with gift certificates and helping people out in the community.
We are not a number at New Tripoli Bank. I just can't express enough how good it is to work with them, because it's not just "go to the website and fill out a form." They're just amazing with their service—I can call Robert and ask him a question about anything and he always picks up the phone. New Tripoli Bank took a risk on us and they have just really worked with us. They understand the fact that you may need help every once in a while, they will sit down, they will talk to you, they will go over it with you and and work it out if they can. With New Tripoli Bank, they know us—we're not a number for them.

Click to hear Thomas' story

Hello, I'm Thomas Jankowski, I'm president and one of the principal engineers at Profi-Vision. We're specialized in providing control engineering solutions for Mining and Cement Industries and other applications in North America. So Profi-Vision specializes on designing control systems with machine learning and higher-end controls. We cover a wide variety of applications, we start at the low voltage distribution, electrical engineering, and we program the controls to reduce the carbon footprint and negative effect on the environment. In the early 2000's, Profi-Vision found new customers here in the US that required a move from Germany to the US to satisfy the local needs. We saw the opportunity to open up business here in Lehigh Valley and worked with the local colleges and engineering companies to establish ourselves. This gave us opportunity to work on challenging projects like water treatment to reduce the environmental impact of some of our customers. The water, before it entered rivers or other areas, had to be neutralized, so we use machine learning algorithm to lower the pH value and neutralized it to standards better than the EPA approved. Profi-Vision as a company has the same challenges as any engineering company; we have to train our side with the new technology, bring up to speed the areas that are continuously evolving, so the challenges that we see are the non-acceptance at the beginning of the new technologies with the fears of not understanding. Our customers have to be trained and be brought up to speed to be comfortable with the technology that they're using. So I've been in business for more than 30 years and for me basically dealing with the banks globally was always a challenge. When we started looking to expand and looking for a new building the New Tripoli Bank approached us instantly with not only one but more than one solution. They made us very comfortable in making that decision and telling us how to move from financially one position to next. The bank showed us the possibilities, not only one option but several options, how to approach it and guided us actually through the whole process to achieve what we wanted. And I think for any business owner, especially people that want to open new businesses, talking to New Tripoli Bank gives us a very understandable toolbox. You have a feeling you talk to somebody that tries to put themselves in your shoes. They had the understanding of what we're doing and understanding how to support us financially.

Click to hear Chad's story

Hi, I'm Chad Balliet and my family and I own South Mountain Cycle & Cafe here in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. We are a bicycle sales and service shop and we have a large retail store. We work on kids bikes, adult bikes, electric bikes, race bikes—anything with two wheels and a pedal. So, our goal with opening our store was to give people a great place to come and be serviced properly. We can size and fit you properly for a bicycle, give you honest service work, and just give you an experience that you want to do what you love and and be able to go out on your bike and and enjoy it. A couple of customers have come in and making them feel confident at 350 lbs that they can ride a bike and they come in a year later and they've shaken 100 lbs they look great and they're out doing things that they never thought they would do before or people coming back and sharing the pictures after their camping trip with their family. You know what I mean? Like when you're trying to figure out how we can get five bikes in a car, those are the things that I get excited about. We want to be supportive of our community and their needs, whether you're riding a bike for fitness or you're actually using it for your transportation. I would say we got involved with New Tripoli Bank probably in 2017 and at that point our business was at a really critical point of growing and changing. An opportunity presented itself for us to purchase our building and not have to rent anymore. It's hard starting off as a small business and going somewhere and asking for money and New Tripoli was so willing to listen to our business plan and very supportive of us being able to get the proper funds necessary to continue to grow our business. You got to be aligned with the proper people and it's never been a question of whether or not New Tripoli is involved in our community. They're very engaged in our community. So what gave us the idea of having a retail store with a cafe in it was really being able to create community bringing people together. Our business isn't unique to anybody else's small business, we definitely rely on people coming back, making sure that they constantly have a great consistent experience. I would call us facilitators, right? So people want to ride bikes and we get to keep them on their bikes, whether it's doing repair, whether it's getting some adjustments set up, just making sure that they understand all of the different accessories that are available to make their ride more enjoyable. Having our our staff trained that when someone comes in and new products are out, we can educate them on that. Being able to feel comfortable coming in, maybe having a couple extra pounds on you, and to a place where you're not judged, where you can just come out. We'll get you sized up for a bike and keep everybody doing what they love—riding their bike. I would recommend anybody to New Tripoli Bank. It's like an episode of Cheers—it's where everybody knows your name. The people know who you are, they know your needs. We have our loan officer come out and visit and just really has an understanding of our business.