SANDPOINT — The three pillars of community outreach efforts for Horizon Credit Union are health, hunger and education.

“This encompasses all three in one building here,” said Steve Sharon, Horizon board chairman, as he indicated the Bonner Community Food Bank.

Sharon, along with the company’s CEO Jeff Adams and all of the Sandpoint and Ponderay employees, stopped by the food bank on Wednesday to present a $1,000 donation.

That was just the start of Horizon’s outreach efforts for the day, as the local employees then set out to various local stores, including Super 1 Foods, Walmart and Yoke’s, to collect food donations for the food bank as well. The food collected will be used for the food bank’s Backpack program.

“We’ve been giving back in the communities for years and years, it’s part of our DNA,” Adams said.

This year, however, the credit union hit a milestone of $1 billion in June, Adams said, and wanted to celebrate.

“And kind of the consensus is, it’s our communities and it’s our members that made it all possible, so what could we do to give back in those communities? So that kind of evolved into the community outreach,” Adams said.

As Adams said, community outreach is not new to Horizon. Employees are given 24 hours of paid leave to give back to the organization of their choice each year, and last year, Adams said the company recorded 4,700 hours of giveback time across the communities Horizon operates in, including Washington, Idaho and Montana.

On Wednesday, all of the branches closed at noon for the day of giving, which Adams estimated will translate into about 675 hours of volunteer time in one day.

“Some places will be stocking shelves or doing different things, but the food bank here, the best way we can help them is to go out and collect some food or raise some funds,” said Kristal Neal, manager of Horizon’s Sandpoint and Ponderay branches.

Sandpoint has been one of Horizon’s “strongest” community partners for many years, Adams said, adding that while it is great for the employees to be able to give individually, the day of giving allowed them to do something together.

“It’s fun for the employees to be able to do something like this as a team … It’s fun to see their smiles,” Sharon said.

One of Horizon’s Sandpoint employees, Craig Mason, has used his volunteer time at the food bank for the past two years, said Debbie Love, executive director of the food bank. The credit union has additionally given the food bank $250 in his name during that time. And after finding out about a crash that left the food bank without a van, Horizon helped out with that, too, and they now have a brand new van.

And then the “cherry on top” said food bank executive assistant Barb Oler, was Wednesday’s donation and food drive efforts.

“After meeting with them, they were thanking us for what we do for our community, but really it’s their community spirit that makes it a community — they are willing to take their time out to help us help the community,” Oler said.

“We are very thankful for the support and love that our community gives,” Love added.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.