Southern Bancorp is a lender serving the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta, where poverty rates are among the highest in America and decades of redlining shaped neighborhoods with little generational wealth.
When the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses started in April 2020, so many of Southern Bancorp’s customers did not qualify for the relief money that the Arkansas bank’s chief executive, Darrin Williams, turned to donors to raise money for $1,000 grants so it would not have to turn applicants away empty-handed.
The bank made 128 such grants, giving more than 100 of them to businesses run by women or minority owners. One let a nail salon owner buy Plexiglas so she could reopen. Another allowed a small cafe to buy safety gear for its staff. A day care used the money for the new sanitizing equipment it needed.