RIVERSIDE, Calif. – The $539 Million Riverside County's Credit Union is partnering with a local Hispanic services organization to start a branch in an almost entirely Hispanic community. According to the credit union, 97% of Coachella's 22,000 residents are Hispanic, with an additional population of 62,000 more or less permanent migratory workers. That population makes the community a perfect site for a credit union branch, only it will not officially be labeled as a branch. “The formal name will be the Good Neighbor Services Program presented by the Riverside Community Credit Union,” said Colleen Finn, spokeswoman for the credit union. “The Good Neighbor Services Program has such a good reputation that they didn't want to diminish it by making it seem like there was a new financial institution just popping up in the community,” she explained. The Good Neighbor program is an outreach of the Desert Alliance for Community Empowerment, a non-profit that had been awarded federal funds to help develop the Coachella Valley region. Through a leased agreement with the Alliance, Riverside will be renovating and thereby, preserving a local landmark, a firehouse located next to the Coachella City Hall. Employees and educators of both organizations will be housed within this building. The branch scheduled to open in early 2004, will offer accessible check cashing services, checking and savings accounts and provide applications for low interest loans to residents with accepted identification, including the Matricula Consular. More importantly, international remittances or “remesas” will be on-site, allowing members to easily provide monetary benefits to family members in their country of origin. Statistics show $9 billion is sent annually to Mexico through wire transfers.