There’s nothing like preparing your tax returns (or gathering the documents for someone else to do it) to make you realize just how much sensitive financial information you might have lying around at home. While experts advise keeping certain documents for varying lengths of time (check the Consumer Reports guidelines here), you likely have many records that are safe to dispose of – but how? If you have a small home shredder it could take hours to destroy your documents, and it’s no fun to remove all those staples! Or you could go to a business to have them shredded by the pound, but it’s surprising how just much all that stuff can weigh.
Hyde Park Bank has the best solution of all – on Saturday, May 2, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the bank is hosting a free “Shred Day” event. Come to the 1525 E. 53rd Street location with up to three paper bags or small boxes of your old tax returns, investment records, bank statements, canceled checks, pay stubs, bills, receipts, letters, and more, and the bank will shred it for free. Plastic bags of documents cannot be shredded.
Hyde Park Bank is “…a true community bank: where tellers know their customers by name, bankers frequent local businesses, and the bank invests in the neighborhood it calls home.” Last fall, the bank was the drop-off point for donations to the Hyde Park Used Book Sale, and the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference wrote, “…Hyde Park Bank gave us a wonderful space to accept book donations, and to sort the books. The bank management, the building management, the security guards, the engineers, the cleaning staff are all wonderful people who have made us feel welcome, supported us, and did their best to make this new book room feel like home. They were lifesavers for this year’s book sale.”
If you’re not a current Hyde Park Bank customer, be sure to talk to a teller or banker about their personal, small business, and commercial banking products and services when you go to Shred Day. Eric Thompson, vice president and regional branch manager of Hyde Park Bank commented, “We’re looking forward to the opportunity to see our current customers as well as greet some new people on Shred Day, so start filling those paper bags and boxes!”
