For SouthState Bank, serving as the Blue Ridge Mountains Parade of Homes check-in location is about much more than opening the doors. It is an opportunity to welcome visitors to the community, build lasting relationships and support a scholarship mission that is investing in the next generation.

On most weekends, the doors at SouthState Bank in Blue Ridge are closed.

But during the Blue Ridge Mountains Parade of Homes, things look a little different.

Employees arrive from branches across the region. College football may be playing in the background. Visitors come through the doors excited to begin their Parade weekend, collecting information, asking for directions and often striking up conversations about everything from the bank building itself to the history of Blue Ridge.

And the SouthState team is ready to welcome them.

What began three years ago as a new location for Parade check-in has developed into a partnership that Tony Dyer, Senior Vice President, and Kayla Seibel, Universal Banker III, say reflects something much larger about SouthState Bank: its belief that banking should be rooted in relationships and that businesses have a responsibility to invest in the communities they serve.

For Tony, there is a phrase within SouthState’s culture that sums it up particularly well: greater purpose.

A Greater Purpose

SouthState Bank operates across a large geographic footprint, but Tony says the company intentionally gives its local teams a voice in deciding which organizations and causes matter most within their own communities.

What is important in Blue Ridge may be different from what is important in another SouthState market. That local decision making allows employees who live and work in the community to identify where their involvement can have the greatest impact.

“We’ve got cultural cornerstones that we live our banking lives with,” Tony says. “They’re not just clichés. They’re values we work hard to put into practice every day.”

Among those cornerstones are greater purpose, local market leadership and the development of meaningful and lasting relationships.

In North Georgia, that commitment frequently leads back to young people.

SouthState employees have participated in programs with local schools, welcomed teachers and students, and worked with young people on basic financial skills that can help prepare them for life after graduation.

Kayla says those interactions can be as straightforward as teaching a student how to write a check, manage money or begin thinking about a budget.

“We want to help set them up for success, not just financially, but in life,” she says.

For Tony, supporting young people is also an investment in the future of the community itself. Some students may leave the area after graduation, but many will eventually make their lives and careers in North Georgia.

“It’s important for us to set that foundation,” he says.

Opening the Doors to the Parade

SouthState’s relationship with the Parade took an important step forward when builder Keith Sumner approached Tony about the possibility of using the Blue Ridge branch as a new check-in location.

There was one obvious logistical challenge: the bank was not normally open on Saturdays or Sundays.

Tony’s response was immediate.

“If opening the bank for the weekend meant we could be part of it, there was never really a question.”

The opportunity fit naturally with the kind of community involvement SouthState was already looking for, and the arrangement quickly became more than simply providing a building.

This year’s Parade will mark SouthState’s fourth year as the official check-in location, and Tony says employees from several branches now volunteer to help throughout the weekend.

Telling employees they need to come into work on a Saturday might not ordinarily generate much excitement.

The Parade is different.

“It’s not, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go to work this Saturday,’” Tony says. “It’s, ‘Oh, I get to go to work this Saturday.’”

The atmosphere reflects that enthusiasm. Employees help distribute Parade materials, provide directions, visit with the Woodstock Furniture team and talk with attendees arriving from communities throughout Georgia and beyond.

For Kayla, those conversations are one of the highlights.

Visitors often walk into the bank already excited about the homes they are about to see, but their curiosity frequently extends well beyond the Parade. They ask what is local, what there is to do in the area and what makes Blue Ridge special.

Sometimes the conversation starts with the bank building itself.

From there, Kayla says, it can move naturally into the history of Blue Ridge, the Parade, the Scholarship Home and eventually the students who benefit from the organization’s scholarship program.

“It starts with the small things,” she says, describing the conversation as a kind of domino effect that leads visitors toward understanding the Parade’s “greater purpose.”

It also gives the SouthState team an opportunity to provide something Kayla considers especially meaningful: a genuine Blue Ridge welcome.

“People are coming from so many different cities and even different states,” she says. “It’s nice to show them the Blue Ridge community and say, ‘Hey, welcome to Blue Ridge.’”

Tony takes that responsibility seriously.

Although visitors are walking into a SouthState branch, he reminds his team that during Parade weekend they are also representing the Parade itself.

“When attendees walk through our doors, we understand that we’re part of their Parade experience, and we take representing the Parade of Homes very seriously.”

Relationships That Last Beyond Parade Weekend

For a business built around relationships, the connections formed during those weekends have often continued long after the last Parade visitor checks in.

Tony has lost count of how many people have returned to the bank months later and asked, “Do you remember me?”

Some ultimately become customers. Others were already SouthState customers elsewhere and discover a new connection to the Blue Ridge team. Still others become friends.

Tony says relationships with Parade organizers, builders, sponsors and volunteers have grown into personal connections that would likely never have existed without the event.

“Those things do not happen without the introduction of this event to us,” he says.

Kayla has witnessed that lasting impact from another perspective.

Last year, a young man who had received a Parade scholarship several years earlier returned during the event. He had maintained an account at SouthState, and now he was back not simply to enjoy the Parade, but to volunteer.

For Kayla, seeing a former scholarship recipient return to give his own time offered a powerful example of how one investment in a young person can continue moving forward.

Investing in the Next Generation

SouthState’s involvement has also expanded beyond opening its doors and sponsoring the Parade. The bank has contributed financially to the Foundation and its scholarship mission.

For Tony, that decision became an easy one once he saw firsthand where the support was going.

“We see where the money goes,” he says.

The annual scholarship banquet has been especially meaningful.

Originally from Blairsville, Tony was moved to see scholarships reaching students not only in Fannin County but in neighboring North Georgia communities as well. To him, that demonstrated that the mission was not about familiarity or geography. It was about identifying deserving students, helping them continue their education and giving them an opportunity to pursue careers that can ultimately strengthen the communities they call home.

“There is no better investment than that generation of teenagers getting ready to start their education after high school,” Tony says.

For Kayla, attending the banquet brought the mission into even sharper focus.

She remembers watching the faces of the students as the scholarships were awarded and thinking about what those opportunities could mean as they prepared to take the next step in their lives.

“Watching those kids get those scholarships, the looks on their faces, the benefit of helping them further their career, is just giving back to the next generation that’s going to be stepping in our footsteps,” she says.

Some students, she recognized, simply needed someone to help close the gap between where they were and where they were trying to go.

“It was truly remarkable to experience,” she says.

Tony describes the evening with one word: emotional.

For him, part of that emotion comes from watching not only the students, but their families. Parents sit beside their sons and daughters, celebrate what they have accomplished and share in a moment that may remain a family memory for decades.

In a busy world, Tony says, opportunities to stop and celebrate those achievements together can be rare.

“You see the family celebrating together,” he says. “That’s a memory those kids will have.”

Creating Remarkable Experiences

Just as SouthState looks for ways to improve the experience it provides customers, Tony and Kayla approach each Parade with the same mindset.

After the event, the teams talk about what worked and what could be better. They consider the layout, the flow of check-in and the small touches that can make visitors feel more welcome.

Even after a year that Tony felt ran especially smoothly, the question remained: What can we improve next time?

That approach connects to another of SouthState’s cultural cornerstones: creating remarkable experiences.

Tony says the bank does not want someone walking through its doors to feel as though they are simply entering a transactional space.

“We want to know you by your first name when you come in,” he says. “If we don’t, we want to learn it and get to know you.”

The same philosophy now defines SouthState’s partnership with the Parade.

As the bank prepares to welcome attendees for a fourth year, Tony sees no reason that relationship should stop anytime soon.

“We’re in for the long haul,” he says. “As long as you’ll let us do it, and as long as we do a good job.”

And when another business owner asks whether becoming involved with the Parade or supporting the Foundation is worth the investment of time and resources, Tony already knows what he will say.

After 20 years of working with and supporting community organizations, he recognizes that there are many worthwhile causes. But the Parade, he says, offers businesses something they can see for themselves.

His advice is simple: get involved, then attend the scholarship banquet and watch what that involvement produces.

“If you sign up with them, you won’t regret it one minute,” Tony says. “It will change your life in a positive manner.”

For SouthState Bank, that is the return on the investment: relationships that extend beyond banking, visitors who leave with a positive first impression of Blue Ridge, and young people who leave the scholarship banquet with opportunities that can change the course of their futures.

It is community banking in the truest sense, and a partnership built around a greater purpose.