Rooted in community.
How Security Bank & Trust Co. gives back across 18 Minnesota communities: Local Return, hospitals and ballfields, and the people who show up.
Security Bank & Trust Co. has put local deposits to work in local places since 1935. When you bank with us, your money stays right here. It funds the businesses, farms, schools, hospitals, and city projects in the 18 Minnesota communities where our 21 offices sit, and a share of what the bank earns goes back to the organizations that hold those communities together.
Local Return: $1 million over five years
On our 90th anniversary in October 2025 we launched the Local Return Initiative: $1 million over five years, $200,000 a year, for the organizations, schools, and community projects in the counties we serve. Local Return did not invent anything. It put a number and a schedule on what the bank had been doing since 1935.
The first gifts went to school sports programs, student causes, and local fire departments, and more than $100,000 had gone out by the time the 2025 Annual Report was published. Give to the Max Day is one of the moments each year when we add to it. The rest of this page is what the money and the hours look like on the ground.
What 2025 looked like
In 2025 the bank put $278,459 into sponsorships and donations across the communities we serve, working alongside more than 50 community partners and the 40 plus local government agencies that bank with us. Some of what that funded:
- $40,000 to New Pathways in Cambridge, in partnership with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines
- 625 toys to Toys for Tots
- The Women of Waconia toy drive, which served more than 500 families
- Christmas for 45 families through the Family Pathways Giving Tree, a partnership of more than four decades
- Livestock 4-H auctions across several counties, which received $47,870 from the bank in 2024
- Farm Fatigue, 300 harvest-season gift bags delivered to McLeod County farmers with the Hutchinson and Glencoe chambers, a tradition of 15 years and counting
The full record is in the annual report each spring.
Projects that changed a town
Some gifts are a check at a golf tournament. These were the other kind: a building, a field, a piece of equipment a town had been saving for.
Each one started with a local group that had already done years of work. The bank's part was to finish the job.
Pictured at the Glencoe Silver Lake softball fields, left to right: School Athletic Director Dean Schwirtz, Jon Hoese, Gale Hoese, Tamara Retka, and Chad Hoese.
Glencoe Silver Lake Athletic Center
The GSL Booster Club had been raising money since 2005 through golf tournaments, pork chop dinners, plant sales, and raffles. A $180,000 gift from the bank finished the project in 2023: a 20 by 100 foot pavilion with concessions, three sets of dugouts, scoreboards, and the fencing that completed the four fields used for softball and baseball. Lighting for evening games is the last phase.
Glencoe City Center
The former Glencoe Middle School became the City Center after years of planning and remodeling that began in 2009. Our $300,000 gift, made with the Hoese family, joined more than 460 community pledges to pass $1.5 million. Today it hosts weddings, concerts, class reunions, and our own Midwinter Ag Roundup.
Glencoe Regional Health
A $311,000 gift, made together with the Hoese family, created the Patient and Family Lounge for transitional care and new space for respiratory therapy at the hospital in the town where the bank started.
Ridgeview Medical Center
A $352,000 gift bought Ridgeview an MCC 7500 IP dispatch console, a system designed to keep emergency call audio clear and to prioritize calls when volume spikes.
Local ballfields
We have backed local baseball and football since 1978. Recent work includes a new scoreboard at Stevens Seminary Stadium in Glencoe, a new scoreboard for Brownton Baseball, the first field lights the Plato Blue Jays ever had, the 2019 Plato grandstand, and sponsorship of the Minnesota State Amateur Baseball Tournament.
Where you will find us
Most of our giving is not a large check. It is a booth at the county fair, a sponsored golf hole, a team in green shirts at the parade. In 2025 that meant more than 50 community partners and events across the footprint, from Brownton Days to Winstock.
The Glencoe Block Party, which we started in 2023 as a nod to the bank's pig roasts of the 1980s, brought more than 1,500 neighbors downtown in 2025. The Midwinter Ag Roundup at the Glencoe City Center drew about 70 farm clients for an evening with Roach Ag Marketing.
For business owners we sponsor EO Rally, Coalition9, and BETA Startup Week, and we host networking events through chambers of commerce in McLeod County, Carver County, and the Twin Cities metro.
By community, 2025
- McLeod County: Glencoe Days, Glencoe Dairy Days, the McLeod County Fair, Brownton Days, the Brownton Bruins Golf Tournament, Winsted Summerfest, the Winsted Winter Festival, Winstock, KGLB Farm and Ag Day, and the McLeod Alliance Bowl-a-thon
- Carver County: Nickle Dickle Day in Waconia, the Waconia Frozen Fairway Open, the Carver County Fair, Chaska River City Days, Taste of Chaska, Chaska Christmas in May, the Chaska Cares Music Festival, the Chaska First Responders Luncheon, and Stiftungsfest
- Isanti County: Isanti Jubilee Days, the Isanti Rodeo, Taste of Isanti, Braham Future Fest, Bradford Days, the Cambridge Customer Appreciation Event, and the Cambridge-Isanti Bluejacket football and Blueliners golf tournaments
- West metro and Ramsey: the EP Lions Pancake Breakfast in Eden Prairie, the Bloomington-Richfield Mite Jamboree, and the Ramsey EDA Golf Tournament
- Farm country and statewide: Breakfast on the Farm, the Sibley County Fair, the Minnesota Holstein Show, the Biodiesel Open with the Minnesota Soybean Growers, and the Minnesota State Amateur Baseball Tournament
Our people do the work
The bank writes the checks. Our employees show up. In 2025 the team logged 1,909 volunteer hours, and 68 percent of them volunteer on their own time as well.
That looks like an Adopt-a-Highway cleanup each spring, a shift packing meals, sorting toys at the Women of Waconia drive, serving dinner to more than 200 people at the Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted football pregame party, and a Halloween food drive at our Winsted office that collected 107 pounds of food for the McLeod County Food Shelf in 2024.
Our people also sit on the boards that run these organizations, from hospital and foundation boards to booster clubs. One of our lenders, Adam Birkholz, is the head football coach at Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted.
Public money, put to work locally
More than 40 cities, school districts, townships, and other local government bodies bank with us. We also buy their tax-exempt bonds and lease obligations directly, which gives a small city a local buyer for the bonds that pay for a water plant or a fire hall. As of 2025, bonds we hold have funded projects in 60 Minnesota cities and counties, from Albany to Wykoff. If you manage a city, school district or township, see how we handle municipal banking, from public deposits to bond purchases.
"Adam Birkholz has been an invaluable resource as well. His history working in the public sector has given him valuable insight on how to structure municipal bonds. The city is proud to have Security Bank & Trust Co. as a partner."
Neil Schlagel, City of Winsted, in the 2025 Annual ReportHow to ask for support
Send a request
Use the donation and sponsorship inquiry form. Tell us who you are, what the money would do, which community it serves, and when you need an answer.
Local Return money goes to organizations, schools, and community projects in the counties we serve. Requests tied to youth, education, health care, agriculture, and the places where a town gathers get the closest look, because that is where most of it has gone.
Common questions
How do I request a donation or sponsorship from Security Bank & Trust Co.?
Submit the donation and sponsorship inquiry form on our website. Include your organization, what the money would fund, the community it serves, the amount, and the date you need an answer by. Requests from the counties where we have offices are reviewed first.
What is the Local Return Initiative?
Local Return is a $1 million commitment announced on the bank's 90th anniversary in October 2025. It puts $200,000 a year for five years into organizations, schools, and community projects in the Minnesota counties Security Bank & Trust Co. serves.
Which communities does Security Bank & Trust Co. support?
The 18 communities where we have offices come first: Glencoe, Brownton, Plato, Winsted, New Auburn, Waconia, Chaska, Cologne, Hamburg, Mayer, New Germany, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Wayzata, North Oaks, Ramsey, Cambridge, and Isanti. Through municipal bond purchases the bank has also funded public projects in 60 cities and counties across Minnesota.
Does Security Bank & Trust Co. buy municipal bonds from Minnesota cities?
Yes. The bank buys tax-exempt bonds and lease obligations directly from cities, school districts, townships, and other local government bodies, which gives smaller communities a local buyer for the debt that pays for public projects.
How much did Security Bank & Trust Co. give in 2025?
In 2025 the bank made $278,459 in sponsorships and donations and its employees volunteered 1,909 hours. Local Return, $200,000 a year over five years, is in addition to that.
Keep reading
- The annual report, where the giving record is published each spring
- The Local Return announcement from our 90th anniversary
- The Glencoe Block Party, our summer night downtown
- Banking for nonprofits, if your organization needs an account as well as a sponsor
- Municipal banking for cities, schools, and townships
- Banking in Cambridge and Isanti, the northern end of the footprint
Bank where your deposits stay local
Every account at Security Bank & Trust Co. is money that stays in Minnesota and comes back around as a loan on Main Street, a bond for a city, or a gift to the ballfield. If that is the kind of bank you want, we are in 18 communities and would like to meet you.
Growing, together.
Figures on this page come from the Security Bank & Trust Co. 2025 Annual Report unless a different year is stated. Donations and sponsorships are decided by the bank at its discretion. Page last reviewed September 2026.