Award Spotlight: Dora Maxwell Social Responsibility Community Service Award

The New York Credit Union Association will present several state-level Recognition Awards to credit unions, chapters and individuals at the 2017 Annual Meeting & Convention. Today’s featured award is the Dora Maxwell Social Responsibility Community Service Award, which honors credit unions that strengthen local institutions and materially improve the lives of non-members through community outreach programs other than financial education.

This year’s winners include Horizons FCU, The Summit FCU and Visions FCU.

Horizons FCU is receiving the award in the $50 million – $250 million asset category. The credit union is being recognized for its Helping Hands program. The program encourages employees to volunteer their free time to help community organizations by rewarding them with points, which can be redeemed for a $25 Visa gift card and recognition at the credit union’s monthly staff meetings. Through Helping Hands, Horizons FCU employees volunteered at the Southern Tier Food Bank’s “Backpack Repack” Program, which provides food to elementary students of low-income families; CHOW events, where food is distributed to low-income families out of a mobile food pantry; the CHOW Garden, where volunteers help farm a garden that provides vegetables to hundreds of families throughout Broome County; and others.

The Summit FCU is receiving the award in the $250 million – $1 billion asset category. In 2016, the Rochester-based credit union began its “Locally Committed” project. Under this umbrella, The Summit identified five community organizations committed to helping Rochester’s at-risk children graduate from high school and prepare for higher education and a career. The Locally Committed project specifically chose community organizations that teach the city’s youth self-reliance and responsibility, with the goals of advancing education in the Rochester-area and breaking the cycle of poverty in the city. The Summit FCU supported the organizations through various fundraising and awareness initiatives, and ultimately assisted approximately 2,500 city students with their efforts.

visions Visions FCU is receiving the award in the more than $1 billion asset category for its #ThanksVisions initiative, which was executed over the course of 2016. The campaign included carrying out random acts of kindness in honor of the credit union’s 50^th anniversary. These acts included everything from paying for fast food meals to comping admission to family movies, summer concerts and more. Visions FCU helped cover food and beverage tabs at drive-thrus and hosted meet-ups exclusively for social media followers. Baseball fans were greeted at the gate with free tickets for a game in one community. In total, the credit union’s outreach campaign affected more than 4,000 people in 23 communities across three states.