BancorpSouth Adds Six New HOPE Inside Locations and Commits Nearly $1.5 Million to Operation HOPE for Financial Literacy Programs

ATLANTA, Aug. 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Operation HOPE and BancorpSouth Bank (NYSE: BXS) are continuing their partnership with six additional HOPE Inside locations and the bank's investment of nearly $1.5 million over the next two years.

HOPE Inside serves adults, youth, disaster survivors, and its partners' employees with financial dignity programming and coaching to equip them with the financial knowledge and tools to create a secure future. Headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, BancorpSouth has a longstanding commitment to financial literacy and inclusion. Because of its shared values with Operation HOPE and its support of HOPE Inside, underserved communities will receive financial education free of charge.

"Our partnership with BancorpSouth has grown because they are equally as passionate about changing what financial literacy looks like in this country," said John Hope Bryant, Founder and CEO of Operation HOPE. "Together, we are empowering the next generation of Americans, making them not just financially literate, but also financially confident."

Operation HOPE welcomed BancorpSouth as a "HOPE Inside" partner in 2017 when BancorpSouth launched its first "HOPE Inside" location in Memphis. BancorpSouth will carry HOPE Inside into six additional communities, three of which focus on financial wellbeing, credit counseling and HUD-certified homebuyer counseling. The other four locations also offer programming for small business development and entrepreneurship.

"BancorpSouth is committed to expanding financial literacy, access and opportunities into previously underserved areas," said BancorpSouth Chairman and CEO Dan Rollins. "Financial education helps communities and individuals prosper. We're excited to continue our partnership with organizations like Operation HOPE."

BancorpSouth's seven HOPE Inside locations now include Dallas; Gulfport, Mississippi; Houston; Jackson, Mississippi; Jackson, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Pensacola, Florida.

About BancorpSouth Bank
BancorpSouth Bank (NYSE: BXS) is headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, with approximately $28 billion in assets.  BancorpSouth operates approximately 315 full-service branch locations as well as additional mortgage, insurance, and loan production offices in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas, including an insurance location in Illinois.  BancorpSouth is committed to a culture of respect, diversity, and inclusion in both its workplace and communities. To learn more, visit our Community Commitment page at www.bancorpsouth.com; "Like" us on Facebook; follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @MyBXS; or connect with us through LinkedIn.

About Operation HOPE, Inc.
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to "silver rights" with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through its community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. For more information: www.OperationHOPE.org. Follow the HOPE conversation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Media Contacts
Antrenise Robinson, BancorpSouth
662-680-2038
[email protected]

Lalohni Campbell, Operation HOPE
404-593-7145
[email protected]

SOURCE Operation HOPE, Inc.