Washington, MO – Bank of Washington is teaming up with Citi Shred to provide the community with the opportunity to shred documents containing personal information. All community members are invited to bring their own boxes and bags of personal documents for shredding. The free community shred day is scheduled for May 12 from 9am to 11am at the Bank of Washington’s Downtown Branch located at 200 West Main Street in Washington. The shred truck will be located in the Bank’s parking lot located at Oak and Second Streets.

“Community members are becoming more aware of how important it is to protect their personal information. Securely destroying documents that contain personally identifiable information is extremely important, but is sometimes a challenge, and we are happy to provide this service to the community each year,” stated Bank of Washington President Louis B. “Buzz” Eckelkamp. “We also encourage people to receive their banking statements electronically, as it is a safer method for receiving and protecting financial information.”

The Bank of Washington is dedicated to educating the community about protecting themselves from identity theft. You can learn more tips about staying safe on their website at bankofwashington.com/staysafe. The Bank also offers an industry-leading identity defense service designed to secure, monitor and restore your personally identifiable information with their Identity Shield product.

“Identity Shield provides many benefits for customers,” stated Eckelkamp. “For me, personally, the largest benefit I see is that if something happens to your identity, you will have a one-on-one dedicated support specialist who helps you through discovering the problem, isolating the problem and working to help prevent future fraud and identity theft. Essentially, you are not alone if something happens.” For more information on Identity Shield, contact the Bank of Washington directly at 636-239-7831 or visit their website for more information.

The Bank of Washington is the oldest and largest community bank in Franklin County, serving the community for over 140 years. The bank has six branch locations and is open seven days-a-week at its branch location inside Schnucks in Washington. The investments that the Bank of Washington makes in the local community ranks them as one of the largest commercial lenders in the St. Louis area and they were voted the number one bank and mortgage lender in the Washington Missourian Readers’ Choice Awards.