BANKING/FINANCE : Wells Fargo Bank’s Remodeling Provides Free Furniture for Nonprofit Agencies

Wells Fargo Bank’s massive remodeling job is providing a boon to nonprofit groups looking for used furniture, and an organization in Santa Ana is one of two distribution points in the state that the bank is using.

Under a long-term contract, the bank is donating about 200 pieces of furniture every week to the Volunteer Center of Orange County. The center then distributes the desks, tables, chairs, cabinets and shelving units for a nominal service fee to some of the 12,000 nonprofit groups in Southern California.

The streamlined arrangement, expected to last at least two years, is ideal for both parties, say spokesmen for the center and the bank.

The center, which has been relying on sporadic donations from corporations, now receives a steady supply of quality used furniture. And the bank is able to move the furniture more quickly by sending it to a single organization instead of numerous groups.

Wells Fargo has a similar arrangement with the United Way of the Bay Area in San Francisco.

The bank is redesigning its 489 branches throughout the state to provide what it terms a “franchise look” that will be “user friendly.” The bank will have 130 more branches to renovate--mainly in Southern California--when its purchase of Great American Bank’s savings and loan offices is completed Nov. 1.

Wells Fargo’s offices had become a “hodgepodge of design,” a spokeswoman said, after years of acquisitions, including the 1986 purchase of Crocker National Bank and the 1988 acquisition of Barclays Bank of California.

The 32-year-old Volunteer Center has been distributing furniture for the last five years as part of its “one-stop” resource assistance. The center’s main services are recruiting and placing volunteers and providing management training to nonprofit groups.