SEATTLE – The high school branch-sometimes with actual credit union staffers on premise-seems to be winning converts among Washington State CUs eager to tap the youth market. The concept of opening makeshift or inexpensive facilities in a local high school with a goal of educating teenagers on CUs and encouraging adult membership turned out to be a `hot topic' at last month's annual conference of the Washington Credit Union League. "There are currently 76 million Americans under the age of 20 who spend millions each year in the marketplace, and when you consider these young consumers lack fundamental life skills when it comes to money management, you know credit unions need to step in," declared Cathy Brorson, a marketing specialist at Kitsap Community FCU in Bremerton. Bremerton is chairman of the League's Youth Development Committee which put on a conference seminar which amounted to a how-to on setting up high school branches. There are currently four Washington State CUs that have the branches with more facilities on the drawing board. The $260 million Clark County School Employees CU of Vancouver launched the first student-run branch in Washington State in 1995 and this month will open its sixth high school facility on top of six traditional branches. "We've recruited many of these young people on to our regular staff after they first worked in the branch," said Danette LaChapelle, vice president of marketing who spoke at the Washington League's conference along with one of those student managers, Tony Boyd, a senior at Evergreen High. Student-run school branches have been launched in a number of states in recent years, but it is believed Washington State has the most facilities and has pushed the concept further along in negotiating with school districts. "We certainly have moved ahead quickly in reaching out to the youth market through the League's Credit Union Youth Development Council, " noted Brorson of the Kitsap CU. " Just having kiddie savings clubs is not enough," said Brorson in outlining the approach Kitsap has taken in beefing up its youth program while establishing a branch at Bremerton High School. Beside Clark County and Kitsap, the other two CUs with school branches are Sno Falls CU, Snoqualmie, and Cowlitz CU, Longview. "A campus branch is not a profit center," emphasized Brorson. "If a credit union is looking to this program as such, they are doing it for the wrong reasons." Rather, a campus branch, she said, should be "the training ground for the financial education you give students." At Kitsap, she said, "we believe in equipping students with the life skills and tools they will need to be financially responsible adults." Financial education, she said, "requires us to reach out to youngsters so that when they become 18 or19 and college age, they look to us." The Kitsap branch at the high school "is a direct outgrowth of a `mock' credit union program that we currently run in three local elementary schools" and she added, "we believe in reaching youth at every age and financially nurturing them every step of the way" The issue of financial education has become paramount, she said, considering "when you hear that the average teenager receives 42 plus credit card offers a year, or that the percentage increase in bankruptcies in the last 10 years has reached 60%." That, Brorson concluded "should send us all a wake up call." Young people, she went on, "are hungry for financial stability just like the rest of us, and if credit unions are not there to answer their questions and meet their needs, someone else will be." Some view this age demographic as `unimportant' because "initially most youth accounts are not profitable," the Bremerton marketer observed. But when working with youth, "you need to look down the road five, 10, even 15 years and beyond." When "that teenager is ready for his first student loan for college, he's going to remember his credit union that has been a part of his life all along," she said. Profitable accounts and life-long members are in the making. At the League conference, videos were shown of the school branches at the four CUs participating. The CUs showcasing their programs ranged in size from $37 million to $529 million. Linda Larion, president of the $37 million Sno Falls CU, said her CU is now in its third year of operating an all student-run branch in a high school.The branch, housed in a former closet and which is utilized by the faculty, is open from Oct. 1 until the end of the term in June. "We have the students apply for branch manager and we work with education teachers in helping supervise the operation," said Larion. "We've had only one case where a faculty asked that his account be blocked." The students are all bonded and the program has been a "real learning experience," she said. Not only about CU business but also about "business and office politics." No loans are extended through the high school branch but the facility has served as a depository for club accounts. Sno Falls, which has five branches including the high school, is considering another high school branch "after we got another request from a different high school," she said. -

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