Youth Initiatives

Youth Week 2008 Success Stories

Union Pacific of AR Federal Credit Union
Karyn Davis

The picture is of our employees working the Spring Carnival at the North Little Rock Catholic Academy, one of our SEG groups. The carnival was held on Saturday, April 19, and we used it to kick off our Youth Week celebration. Employees manned the booth (a fish bowl toss) and the credit union provided all materials and prizes for the children. An employee was also available to speak with any parent or student who was interested in opening an account at the credit union.

Union Pacific of AR FCU         Click for larger view

We will also be holding an open house tomorrow, April 24, for students at the school in grades 1-5. We are encouraging those children who already have accounts to bring in deposits during that time and for other students to use the opportunity to open their own account. We will be handing out Youth Week pencils, temporary tattoos, and fortune teller brochures to each student. In addition, each class will play the Got Green board game while they are here and the winners will receive extra prizes. Credit union employees will be talking to the kids about the importance of both saving money and saving the earth. We hope these activities will become an annual event and encourage our youth to be active within our credit union.

Cabrillo CU Click for larger view

Cabrillo Credit Union
Kyle Legnos

The credit union held a coloring contest for children aged 0-17, an essay contest for children aged 7-17, and provided tours of its facilities to all that participated. In addition to the tour, the credit union gave each child a piggy bank and had refreshments.

“It is an honor to be a part of this program and a great way to teach young people about the credit union and financial literacy,” Carla Simpson, Federal Building branch manager said. “We’re excited to be a part of it.”

Redwoood CU Click for larger view

Redwood Credit Union
Traci Thylin Bocci

Planned festivities include free educational seminars for children and teens, contests, informative handouts, giveaways, and more. The youth seminar topics will include “Teaching Kids How to Save” for children and their parents, and “On Your Way to Financial Independence” and “Don’t Get Caught in the Credit Trap” for teens. In addition, RCU will be hosting a coloring contest and a $100 Savings Challenge Sweepstakes for youths who make a deposit into their savings account during Youth Week. We will be giving away seed packets and the recycled pens from CUNA, as well as hosting the Savings Challenge and a coloring contest. For the coloring contest, we've created our own custom coloring sheet featuring our youth accounts mascot, Reddy the Redwood.

Altura Credit Union
Carol Kramer

Altura CU Click for larger view

As part of National Credit Union Youth Week in April, Altura Credit Union offered the chance to win a Nintendo Wii to entice young people to develop good financial habits by opening a MyMoney youth account at the credit union.

As a result, 101 youth opened accounts totaling more than $70,000. Any child who opened a new MyMoney youth account at Altura Credit Union during that week was automatically entered into a drawing for a chance to win the Nintendo Wii gaming system. At the end of the promotion, the drawing was held and the lucky winner was Kyle Argonza from Rancho Mirage.

Bruce Gillen (left) manager of Altura Credit Union’s Rancho Mirage branch, presents the Nintendo Wii to winner, Kyle Argonzo, and his mother, Mylene Argonzo.

California Pacific Federal Credit Union
Fadhila Holman

California Pacific FCU Click for larger view

This year we really got into the spirit of things. We have a creative band of “Martha Stewart on a Shoestring” staffers. Between the bunch of us, we were able to come up with a way to mirror the national campaign using fake sunflowers and toy money. Our logo colors are blue and yellow so we used blue glass vases, bottles, and buckets for the flowers to incorporate our credit union’s brand. We held events all through the week, giving away goodie bags with new accounts, piggy banks to all the youth members (and new members) that brought in change to deposit into their accounts (if they brought in cans, bottles, banks, bags – whatever, and ran them through the coin counter we gave them a bank to take away with them). We had the coloring banners up and small crates of crayons for the children to color as well as the coloring contest in three age categories. There was, of course, the $100 drawing entry form for all youth visiting the credit union during youth week.

We are launching a new youth account program (or should I say a reinvigorated program with an all-new theme specific to our credit union) and we are sure the buzz created by Youth Week will give us the perfect lead in and energy needed to make it a big success.

Aurora Schools FCU Click for larger view

Aurora Schools FCU Click for larger view

Aurora Schools Federal Credit Union
Rachael Gregoire

Our staff was dressed in a different theme each day during Youth Week. Monday was sports day with sports games and prizes. Tuesday was cartoon day with a cartoon movie in our board room with pizza, popcorn, and a prize drawing. Wednesday was green day with a frog bean bag toss, money tree game with cash prizes, free plant seeds, and free quarter saver booklets. Thursday was beach day with duck pond games, a hula-hoop contest, and sidewalk chalk. Friday was carnival day with carnival games, prizes, and a hot-dog lunch.

BME Federal Credit Union
Jodee Bennett

BME FCU Click for larger view

During Youth Week BME Federal Credit Union opened eight new accounts for kids 18 and younger and deposited $2,207 in youth accounts. Kiddos started growing their green at BME without having any dollars up front by visiting one of BME’s branches and bringing in the BME $5 Buck; BME made youths’ first initial $5 deposit. Kids could also pick an envelope from the BME Money Tree.

Children WON:

• Save for the future money handouts (a giant replica of the redesigned $50 bill) featuring creative ways to save money
• Wildflower seed packets to watch grow in the garden while kids got wild about saving green at the credit union, and more goodies hanging on the BME Money Tree!

BME plans to do a back-to-school promotion in the fall with the BME Money Tree due to its success during Youth Week!

New Castle County School Employees Federal Credit Union
Stephanie Mitchell

This is what we did for the week at New Castle County School Employees Federal Credit Union:

• Had refreshments throughout the week
• Handed out ID fingerprint kits
• Handed out "Guide to Money" to ages 14 and over
• For each account opened we had goodie bags for children in the grades K-3 and 4-7. These bags included a coloring book, a bookmark, and crayons
• Handed out the coloring page, the page with "Tips to go Green" and the Got Green game board

We had set goals of $300 in deposits and did $200, five new accounts and we opened six, and 15 making deposits and we did seven.

Delaware Credit Union League
Alice Smith

To promote the benefits of credit union membership and saving, any student between the ages of 6-18, opening a new account at Del-One between April 20-26, 2008, will be entered to win one day’s interest on $1 million and a limousine ride to and from school; allowing them to carry the title, ‘Millionaire for a Day’. In addition, all students visiting any Del-One branch during Youth Week will receive complimentary giveaways.

Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union
Kenneth Shaw

Hawaii Community FCU Click for larger view

Hawaii Community FCU Click for larger view

At Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union we had radio spots and newspaper ads running throughout the month of April. We also had all five of our branches and our three student credit unions decorated as of April 1 to help get everyone excited. On Wednesday, April 23, 2008 we had the Kona Police Department in our Kailua branch. They were giving out free keiki (children) IDs. At our Kealakekua branch, we invited the local pre-school (Son Shine and Hongwanji) to come in for money presentations. The kids were shown how our new coin counters work. We also had juice and cookies, face painting, story telling, and tours of the branch. The kids all received goodie-bags that included pencils, paper, and our seed handout. It was a huge success this year, much better than our previous years and we are looking forward to next year already! All of our branches were really excited! One branch did green tie-dye t-shirts and other branches had GOT GREEN shirts.

Bell Financial Community Credit Union
Geneva

Bell Financial Community Credit Union took out a commercial on our local radio station promoting Youth Week and the whole commercial is read by the kids of the employees of the credit union. It's a really cute commercial!

Members "First" Community Credit Union
Melissa Clopper

This year we took a different approach to Youth Week, making it more about getting the youth inside with our first Annual Youth Game Night and our specials all week long for not only new accounts, but for deposits as well.

All week we did goody bags for our new account openers and seed packets for those who made a deposit. We made three classroom visits and taught a lesson on savings, and now we are welcome back each year at this time as the lesson was well received by teachers and students.

Our biggest change this year was our first Annual Youth Game Night. On Tuesday we kept our main lobby open from 5-6:30 p.m. just for our youth to come in and open accounts, make deposits, and play different games. It was quite a success for our first year, we had 18 deposits, six of which were new accounts. This is definitely something we will continue on with.

I have found with our particular situation, being a smaller credit union with many others in our area, we set ourselves apart by doing what may seem as little as a Youth Night and that is how we will continue to grow.

Community Plus Federal Credit Union
Wednesday Medlen

Community Plus FCU Click for larger view

Community Plus Federal Credit Union, Rantoul, IL, partnered with a local school to offer a seed planting activity during the school’s Family Fun Night. The school’s theme was recycling, which went great with our Got Green! Grow it at your Credit Union theme. The kids loved the idea of planting their own seeds and taking them home to watch them grow. Plus, what kid would pass up the opportunity to play with dirt!! Partnering with the local school opened up doors for additional youth financial literacy projects in the future.

Advance Financial FCU Click for larger view

Advance Financial Federal Credit Union
Samantha Knight

Our National Youth Savings Challenge winner, Christian Flores. Also shown is our CEO/President John Wohadlo and Schererville Branch Manager Maria Rosario.

Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union
Kristy Robb

Purdue Employees FCU Click for larger view

Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union (PEFCU) partnered with the West Lafayette Parks Department and a Klondike Elementary School first-grade class to plant trees donated by PEFCU at the Celery Bog in West Lafayette.

“Everyone, from children to the elderly, can positively affect our environment,” said Bob Falk, PEFCU president and chief operating officer. “Through this event, we were able to show our youth how small changes in their everyday lives can lead to big savings—for them and their community.”

During the event, participants celebrated the 22 trees PEFCU members saved per month in 2007 by choosing to receive eStatements (electronic account statements) rather than traditional paper statements by mail. They also recognized Erin Moore, PEFCU personal service advisor, for her leadership in signing up members for eStatements this year. Moore led the staff in converting a large number of members from paper statements to eStatements in the past month.

Advance Financial Credit Union
Jim Rednour

Advance Financial Federal Credit Union member Christian Flores has been chosen as one-of-ten national winners in the National Youth Saving (NYS) Challenge, sponsored by CUNA – Credit Union National Association. The nine-year-old Crown Point resident was entered into the NYS Challenge thanks to a deposit into his “Moe Monkey Youth Club” account by his grandmother, Margie Torres-Flores, during AFFCU’s Youth Week events.

Christian, who has been a member of Advance Financial since he was one year old and became one of our first “Moe Monkey Kids’ Club” members when we created the youth program in 2005, said winning the $100 prize was “awesome.”

“He couldn’t wait to tell all his friends what a cool place the credit union is…because he’s one of the owners!” said Advance Financial’s Marketing Director Samantha Knight.