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Last year, during a time that was a challenge for so many, C&N wanted to bring a little hope & humanity to our communities. When saw that September 8th was National Ampersand Day, we knew that it was the perfect time to honor everything that an ampersand represents: togetherness, connections & inclusion. We decided that the best way to celebrate Ampersand Day would be to do something good for someone and encourage others to pass it on. It was a successful celebration of community, & we were thrilled with the response we received.

We’re continuing our newest tradition this year with the hope that the momentum of carrying out selfless acts of kindness will spread throughout our communities & beyond. So, what are we doing this year for Ampersand Day, & how can we all get involved?

The History of Ampersand Day
National Ampersand Day was founded in 2015 by Chaz DeSimone to celebrate the use & importance of the ampersand in our culture, & to inspire “AmperArt,” a fun project that artists use to create various forms of art that involve an ampersand. While nobody can know for sure when the first ampersand was used, it can be found as far back as 79 A.D. An early example was discovered as graffiti on a wall in Pompeii, preserved by the Vesuvius eruption. The ampersand was formally accepted in place of the word ‘and’ in 1899.

Getting the Community Involved
While the history of National Ampersand Day began by commemorating the ampersand symbol, C&N adopted it & took it one step further by celebrating not only the ampersand, but also what the symbol represents. Because 2020 was challenging for so many, we thought that by encouraging the spreading of simple, random acts of kindness, those small acts might reverberate throughout our communities in a big way. This year, just as last year, you can get an Ampersand Day card on September 8th at any C&N location. If you do something nice for someone, pass your card along to them & ask them to pay it forward. This year, we are encouraging anyone who receives a card to post it to Facebook with the hashtag #CNAmpersandDay, where one winner will be randomly chosen to win $100 to a charity of their choice. We’re looking forward to seeing how far these cards travel!
We will also have C&N socks & sunglasses & treats to give away in all of our locations, so if you have any banking to do, September 8th would be a great day to do it!

It Starts at Home
The ampersand has become very important to C&N. From our branding to our culture, the ampersand is used to represent the relationships we build. Because Ampersand Day has become its own holiday at C&N, we have some fun & exciting things planned for the big day.
We’ll all be able to wear jeans to celebrate comfortably while we rally around our symbol. This will also be the second year of our “Amper Art” contest, where C&N teammates are welcome to submit their artistic interpretation of the ampersand. From drawing one on a piece of paper to sculpting one out of clay or even baking an ampersand cake, we encourage our teammates to dig deep into their creative side. Once they are submitted, all of C&N will be able to vote on their favorite ampersand creation to be crowned the “Amper Art Champion” for the year. Everyone at C&N will be given an Ampersand Day card that will encourage them to do something nice for someone and spread the love beyond themselves. We’re all very eager to participate in the true spirit of National Ampersand Day by taking care of others.

Beyond C&N & Ampersand Day
Ampersand Day is a great day to do things for others and have fun honoring the little symbol that join things together, so we encourage you to do celebrate on your own even if you can’t make it to C&N. If you do something nice for someone, you’ll notice right away how good it feels to make someone else’s day. You can do other little things to celebrate ampersand day, such as replacing the word ‘and’ with an ‘&’ in all of your emails, or create your very own “Amper Art,” which you can do as a fun activity at home with the kids!

Celebrating the ampersand in a way that encourages kindness & togetherness is at the heart of what drives C&N every day. We’re looking forward to seeing all the good that can come from making someone else’s day. We’ll see you all on September 8th!

About C&N: C&N is an independent community bank providing complete banking, financial, investment and insurance services through 30 full-service offices located throughout Bradford, Bucks, Cameron, Lycoming, McKean, Potter, Sullivan and Tioga, counties in Pennsylvania and Steuben County in NY. C&N also operates three loan production offices in Elmira, NY, York, PA and Warminster, PA, which offer commercial, residential and consumer lending services. C&N can be found online at cnbankpa.com. The Company’s stock is listed on NASDAQ Capital Market Securities under the symbol CZNC.