A few days ago I called our executive editor, Natasha Chilingerian, to give her some good news about work-related things that have been going on and after her initial reaction to it, she said something that has stuck with me. She said, “I’m realizing that I don’t know how to handle good news anymore.”
You know what? She pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as what this year has done to many of us.
I took a break from researching and reaching out to Louisiana and Texas credit unions impacted by Hurricane Laura, as well as those credit unions out in California surrounded by the 17 active wildfires.
That break allowed me to go on a Google hunt for some hyper-local credit union news that’s been happening around our country.
We are nine months into this 41-year-long year, and credit union executives and employees appear to remain focused on who they are and what they can accomplish for their members and communities as a whole.
Let’s look at Santa Fe, N.M., and State Employees Credit Union. The credit union with more than $735 million in assets and serving nearly 50,000 members has done something incredible, innovative and honestly inspiring.
The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper filed a really nice story about State Employees and an idea from executives about setting up an education lab inside each of its eight branches (two in Santa Fe and the others spread around New Mexico).
According to the report, these education labs were set up to solve two problems so many other organizations are facing in the U.S.: Remote schooling and parents needing to be at work. Well, three problems, if you consider how many people have terrible internet service at their homes.
Basically, the credit union set up these remote education rooms for employees’ children, no matter the school age, so the kids have a quiet place to learn as well as have a reliable internet connection for this virtual school year as our lives continue to be impacted by this pandemic. While the parents work, the kids learn. The kicker? The credit union, according to the story, is paying a tutor or education monitor to be there in the room in case the kids need help with the school work.
I was struck by this story and how innovative and credit union-y it felt. They saw a need for their employees and/or community, and came up with a win-win.
The concept of “pay-it-forward” isn’t new, but let’s go down to Florida for a minute and check in with Grow Financial Federal Credit Union.
I found a story from Bay News 9, a Spectrum News station, where the $2.8 billion credit union dipped into its marketing and advertising budget to randomly donate to small businesses in the area where the credit union serves more than 212,000 members.
According to the story, the credit union handed over thousands of dollars to small businesses that have been struggling, like so many others around the country, to help out. There was one catch – whatever amount the credit union handed over to the small business, that business had to do something for its customers. In one instance, a local pizza place gave away 267 pizzas. However you slice it (pizza joke), this was a brilliant idea in that the credit union infused some much-needed cash into a small business and then the business paid it forward to its customers. So many of your members and non-members are looking for any kind of help right now – even if it’s a free pizza. Pizza sounds really good right now.
There’s a gigantic wildfire happening out in California and I know that’s not unusual. The LNU Lightning Complex wildfire is currently the second-largest wildfire in the state’s history. As of this writing, it’s burned 375,209 acres north and east of Napa, Calif.
The Travis Credit Union Foundation, which is part of Travis Credit Union ($3.9 billion in assets and more than 215,000 members), is collecting donations for a wildfire relief effort. So, while not an unusual step for the foundation to take, it is noteworthy. First of all, the fires happening in California are 25 times worse than the wildfires of 2019. Second of all, Travis is covering all of the administrative costs around the foundation’s donation efforts so that 100% of the donations received go directly toward supporting recovery efforts.
According to Travis President/CEO Barry Nelson, “We are proud to be an organization that operates under the philosophy of ‘people helping people,’ and encourage all who are moved to contribute, to do so.” Nelson continued, “Our hearts go out to all who have experienced such devastation. We know their needs are great, and will continue to grow.”
Recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that at this time last year, California had 4,292 fires that burned 56,000 acres. According to local news reports, so far this year, there have been 7,002 fires that have burned more than 1.4 million acres.
My point is today there are several parts of the country, if not all parts of the country, that are in need in some way or the other. And there are credit unions out there stepping in to fill that need, however creative or sometimes unsurprising as it might be at times.
Right now we are still assessing the damage from Hurricane Laura and we know credit unions, employees, their families and the communities at large are going to need a lot of help rebuilding their lives and businesses – all during a pandemic.
Credit unions in North Carolina, Michigan, Utah and all of the other states of the nation are doing some necessary and incredible things for their members and communities.
Listen, things are hard. Life is weird. Things are a little or a lot scary for so many people. Credit unions are getting creative and doing some hands-on things to help with COVID-19, hurricane relief, wildfire assistance and serving the underserved. It’s amazing to read and learn about what our credit union leaders are doing to fill specific needs for so many people. And like Natasha said, “I’m realizing that I don’t know how to handle good news anymore” is true in that the good news has been hard to find.
Thank you to the credit unions out there doing things like State Employees, Travis, Grow Financial and Hope Credit Union. Hope is transforming its field of membership by becoming such an important Paycheck Protection Program participant … well, just Google it.
Michael Ogden is editor-in-chief for CU Times. He can be reached at mogden@cutimes.com.