Georgia’s Jefferson County is home to $2.2 billion-asset Queensborough National Bank & Trust Company. It’s a rural county in the eastern part of the state with about 15,000 residents and a single hospital just up the road from the bank’s headquarters in the county seat of Louisville.
Jefferson Hospital and Queensborough are neighbors and banking partners, but Clare Easterlin, the community bank’s EVP and chief risk officer, says there’s even more to their relationship. “The connection between bank and community and hospital run deep,” she says. Easterlin’s great-great-grandfather founded the bank in Louisville in 1902, when it was known as the First National Bank of Louisville.
Since 2019, Queensborough has contributed $600,000 to the 37-bed general acute care facility through a state program. It made its most recent $100,000 donation last November.
Easterlin says that the bank understands how critical it is to have a hospital in Jefferson County. “I think it’s pretty clear, looking around, how important healthcare access is to a community so that it can grow or survive and attract people and care for its community without [people] having to travel 30 minutes to an hour away for basic care.”
Why is Jefferson Hospital Critical to Jefferson County?
Queensborough and Jefferson Hospital are connected in more ways than one. Since January 2025, Easterlin has served on the hospital’s board of directors, succeeding her father, Queensborough CEO and president Bill Easterlin, who had served on the hospital board for about 40 years.
The position has given the younger Easterlin an insider’s view into the challenges of operating the facility.
“What I have learned in the last year being on the hospital board is how difficult it is to run a rural hospital, how thin the margins are,” she says. “We recently had a discussion where somebody was saying, like any business, you need to be able to be profitable, and that’s a valid point. On the other hand, most businesses can say that if you’re not going to pay us, we don’t want your business, and hospitals don’t have the option to turn away people who need healthcare.”
Hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required by law to screen and treat patients experiencing medical emergencies regardless of their ability to pay.
Easterlin says that like other hospitals, Jefferson Hospital participates in other funding programs—it ranks 23rd out of 51 in terms of financial need among rural hospitals, according to the Georgia Department of Community Health. One such support is the Georgia HEART Hospital Program. HEART stands for Help Enhance Access to Rural Treatment, and the initiative offers tax benefits to individuals and businesses that provide help.
Ansley Thrift, Jefferson Hospital’s director of marketing, says the program is vital for the hospital’s financial viability, allowing it to maintain reliable day-to-day operations, upgrade equipment and continuously enhance and expand services. The facility has used some of the funds it has received to open a behavioral health unit, for instance, and to purchase equipment for anesthesia and patient monitoring.
Contributing to the hospital through the Georgia HEART Program enables Queensborough to receive a 100% state income tax credit for up to 75% of its annual Georgia income tax liability. The community bank also receives a federal business expense deduction.
Queensborough is among the largest donors to the hospital through the program. “Tax-credit-wise, and as a business and community member, they’re always very supportive of Jefferson Hospital, and we’re greatly appreciative of that,” Thrift says.
Easterlin appreciates the program, on which Alabama has modeled a similar initiative. “A statewide program that allows us to direct our tax dollars to something we know is a direct benefit to our community, I think is a great thing,” she says.
How Does Queensborough Bank Support the Local Community?
Although about 100 bank employees—around a quarter of its workforce—work in its headquarters, operations center or three Jefferson County branches, Queensborough’s footprint has grown. Its Georgia territory now extends from Augusta to Savannah, and it has a commercial lending office in Columbia, South Carolina.
The bank’s community involvement and generosity isn’t limited to Jefferson Hospital. It also encourages managers and their teams to choose additional causes to support. These often include the Golden Harvest Food Bank, which operates throughout Georgia and South Carolina.
Employees can be paid for volunteering at what Easterlin calls “qualifying” events. “It’s not this huge, life-changing incentive program, but it is to say, ‘This is important to us. We hope that it’s important to you,’” she says. “It’s important to our culture as a community bank.”
The 124-year-old community bank is reaffirming its commitment to Jefferson County’s residents through its contributions to Jefferson Hospital and other local organizations. “I hope it is recognized as another way in which Queensborough is committed to the community, even as we grow and expand to Augusta and expand to the Savannah area,” Easterlin says. “We’re not forgetting our roots and where the bank started.”