St. Louis Community Credit Union
What comes to mind when you think of a financial institution? We featured our friends at St. Louis Community Credit Union who contacted us up to share why SLCCU is more than just a credit union by hearing stories from their members and community partners. The common thread beyond member service, auto loans, and account transactions was one very important thing: relationships. More after Jeremy, Patrick, and Destini’s stories below!
“I’m not even that healthy of a guy. I eat junk food all the time. I have the privilege of choice, so I can choose to eat burgers and fries or eat healthily. But after moving from Houston to St. Louis for medical school, I realized not everyone could choose to eat healthy. As a student, I saw people in this city struggling to find and afford healthy food where they live because it just didn’t exist. And I got a double dose because, while on rotations in the hospital, I saw the side effects of this disparity manifesting as heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. This was especially frustrating because minorities are disproportionately affected by food inequity as many live where there are no grocery stores. Moreover, they have limited resources and transportation to be able to access good food in neighboring communities. So, over time, the lessons we’re supposed to learn about what to eat and how to prepare it are never learned. I was motivated to learn as much as I could about food deserts and food access. And I knew then that I had to do something about it. If good food didn’t exist in these neighborhoods, I was determined to bring it to them.”
Jeremy Goss, Founder, The Link Market
“If you stood in the lobby for a day and just asked people, ‘Tell me your story,’ everybody walks in here. Years ago, at 6:30 in the morning, I showed up and there was a guy sitting in the drive-thru. I said, ‘What are you doing? We don’t open ‘til 9:00. He said, ‘I’m an early riser. I don’t have any gas in my car and I don’t have any money. I can’t go anywhere.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll give you five bucks so you can get some gas and you don’t have to sit in this line.’ And he brought it back to me. There’s a woman who came in and said, ‘I need some money. I need a withdrawal because I need to get diapers.’ It’s not high finance. It’s getting people through the day. It’s easy to judge. Wants don’t diminish because you don’t have means. That’s just human nature. That’s behavioral economics. I heard it said that the consumer as a superhero would not be Superman. They would look more like Homer Simpson. We make a lot of bad decisions every day whether we have money or not. If somebody gets a used car loan, what is the multiplier on that economic mobility? Now they have wider access to a job market. How narrow is the job market just based on public transportation? We give someone access to a used car and, holy cow! Now they can get a job and have a life to lead as opposed to spending all their downtime connecting buses. Little things like that make a big difference. So we take the risk to do it where others don’t, and we’re rewarded accordingly.”
Patrick Adams, Former St. Louis Community Credit Union CEO
“The whole idea is not to say, ‘Just save $25.’ You can save anything from spare change to five dollars. But just make sure that it’s being put away. Most people think, ‘I can’t save,’ and it’s because they have this idea that saving requires you to save $50 or more. But, no. My boss and I, we were saving dollar bills – just dollar bills that had the first letter of ‘C’ or ‘G’ or ‘H’ or whatever one we chose that’s in the circle on the bill that indicates which Federal Reserve Bank it came from. Like, ‘A’ comes from New York, and ‘H’ is from St. Louis. So every time we would see an ‘H,’ we would tuck that dollar away. I wasn’t using my debit card. I made it an intention to use cash. I just put whatever was left over from the day or week in a little piggy bank and didn’t touch it. When I opened my piggy bank at the end of the year, I had saved close to $400. Like, ‘Oh, wow! That’s a lot.’ It was a little bit past Christmas when I treated myself and went on a trip to visit family. So it’s as simple as saving your extra change every day and putting it away. You can do it! You may need to figure out the sacrifices you need to make, but it’s possible.”
Destini Goodwin, Managing Director, Fathers’ Support Center