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In August 2019, we made a three-year commitment to help launch Green Dot, a bystander intervention strategy that reduces power-based personal violence in Grand Forks, ND, and surrounding communities. Since then, bystander intervention has increased greatly in the area.
This is a form of violence that has a primary motivator: assertion of power, control and/or intimidation in order to harm another person. This includes relationship/partner violence, rape/sexual assault, stalking and other uses of force, threat, intimidation or harassment.
Green Dot is a program of the Community Violence Intervention Center (CVIC), which has served the community for more than 40 years. The idea is to view Grand Forks and the surrounding area in terms of an interactive dotted map, which is shown to volunteers who participate in Green Dot training sessions.
In these sessions, red dots represent a choice that has reportedly been made to cause harm to another person, while green dots represent bystander acts (specifically those involving civilian intervention-based training techniques) that have been conducted to improve the safety of community members. We’ve shown our support with:
To become a certified bystander, one must go through 24 hours of training, while trained bystanders go through six hours of training. Throughout the process, participants learn to:
Reach out to someone directly to see if they need help.
Alert someone else or the authorities. (For example, call 911.)
Create a distraction to diffuse the situation. (As an example, if you see someone in a heated argument, consider asking them to take a photo of you.)
Lori Tweten, Senior Customer Service & Sales Supervisor, has become a certified Green Dot trainer, and Becky Mindeman, Senior Vice President of Retail Banking, has been trained through the Green Dot program. Both serve on the Green Dot Committee, and Mindeman is a CVIC board member.
“At Gate City Bank, part of our mission is to help customers, communities and team members create a better way of life, which involves supporting programs that help promote those people’s well-being,” Mindeman says. “We’re so thankful to partner with an organization dedicated to lessening violence.”
Gate City Bank looks forward to strengthening the Green Dot program – and many of its other regional, community-focused initiatives – in the years to come. CVIC is grateful for this partnership, which is truly making a difference for community members.
Comfort. Care. Compassion. See the story behind our $100,000 donation to Sunshine Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit in Grand Forks, ND, that supports patients and their families who must travel for health care.
Learn how our team members have donated $30,000 and countless volunteer hours to a Minot animal shelter, which provides care for furry friends both locally and throughout North Dakota.
Learn how we’re partnering with the Cass Clay Community Land Trust to establish more affordable housing in the FM community and surrounding area.
Learn more about how we donated $10,000 so that an annual nonprofit fashion show (which has become incredibly popular in the local community) could continue virtually amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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