At Operation Hope opening reception December 1, (l-r): John Hope Bryant, CEO and Founder, Operation Hope, Inc.; Carol B. Yochem, Middle Tennessee regional President, First Tennessee Bank; and Bryan Jordan, President and CEO, First Horizon National Corporation. (Photo by Cass Teague)
Tennessee’s largest home-state bank has partnered with the global nonprofit organization Operation HOPE to offer free financial literacy workshops and one-on-one financial counseling at HOPE Inside offices at First Tennessee Bank branches.
The first two Nashville locations to offer the innovative program are at First Tennessee’s Inglewood and East Nashville branches, located at 3518 Gallatin Pike and 965 Woodland Street. These are the first offices of HOPE Inside in Middle Tennessee. HOPE Inside offers special workshops and counseling that offer helpful information about family budgeting, paying off debt, saving money, improving credit scores and consumer rights, free of charge and available to the general public.
Operation HOPE, Inc. is a non-profit organization providing financial literacy empowerment and economic education to youth and adults. The mission and programs carried out by Operation HOPE, Inc. focus on silver rights empowerment and seek to make free enterprise work for everyone.
John Hope Bryant, founder of the global organization Operation HOPE, attended the Grand Opening Reception for the Operation HOPE office at the First Tennessee Bank in the East Nashville Branch at 965 Woodland Street, Nashville, TN 37206 on Tuesday, December 1, 2015.
John Hope Bryant was born February 6, 1966 in Los Angeles, California, and raised primarily in Compton, and in the South Central area of Los Angeles, by parents Juanita Smith and Johnnie Will Smith. Bryant graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1984. On May 5, 1992, Bryant founded Operation HOPE, Inc., immediately following the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, California.
“During the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Sr, co-pastored Ebenezer Baptist Church with his son Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and served on the board of a bank for 40-years,” says Bryant. “Operation HOPE, Inc. seeks to teach others about financial literacy and fiscal responsibility just as Martin Luther King, Sr sought to instill these ideals in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Operation HOPE, Inc. maintains the mission of both Martin Luther King, Sr and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr to make free enterprise work for all by focusing on poverty eradication and economic justice.”
First Tennessee is part of the First Horizon National Corp, whose 4,300 employees provide financial services through more than 170 bank locations in and around Tennessee and 27 FTN Financial offices in the U.S. and abroad. Founded during the Civil War in 1864, it has the 14th oldest national bank charter in the country.Former U.S. President Bill Clinton described Mr. Bryant in his 2010 book Giving saying, “John Bryant is a 41 year-old whirlwind of ideas and action. Lean, intense, focused, and completely positive in his belief in the potential of poor people to prosper, with ‘a hand up and not a hand out.’”
Bryant continues his work under President Barack Obama as part of the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability (PACFC).
He was appointed chairman of the new Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment for the PACFC in January 2012.
