SELCO Community Credit Union celebrates 85th birthday by giving back to communities

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (KTVZ) — To celebrate its 85th birthday in November, SELCO Community Credit Union turned the tables on the traditional birthday celebration. Rather than being the guest of honor at their own party, SELCO recognized, surprised, and rewarded the individuals and communities that have supported the member-owned credit union over the past eight-plus decades.

To do so, SELCO implemented a company-wide “85 Acts of Kindness” initiative that empowered team members and branches to conduct planned and spontaneous acts of community kindness throughout the 27 counties SELCO serves. All told, 284 acts of kindness were completed during the months of October and November, ranging from free car washes and meals for frontline healthcare workers, to giving away $25 DonorsChoose gift cards that recipients could in turn use to make a donation to a local classroom of their choice.

“Given the team members we have in place and their enthusiasm for SELCO, our members, and the communities in which they live and work, I’m thrilled but not surprised that 85 Acts of Kindness grew to 284,” said Tiffany Washington, SELCO’s executive vice president of finance and operations.

While an 85th birthday might not typically carry the cache of a larger silver or centennial milestone celebration, SELCO saw it as an opportunity to thank members for their loyalty and to give team members the chance to engage with their communities in other meaningful ways - something they have missed amid the pandemic. The many notable planned or random individual, branch, or company-wide acts of kindness included the following highlights:

• Handing out 20 Café Yumm! gift cards to healthcare workers as they went on their lunch breaks (planned/individual)
• Paying it forward by picking up the tab for someone else’s dinner at a restaurant (random/individual)
• Handing out 100 DonorsChoose gift cards that recipients could use to make a $25 donation in their own name to a local public school teacher’s classroom project (planned/branch)
• Restocking 12 Little Free Library neighborhood locations (random/individual)
• Providing 50 free car washes to unsuspecting customers at a local car wash and to members during in-branch visits (planned/branch)
• Donating 30 pairs of new socks to an elementary school sock drive (random/individual)
• Purchasing and donating pumpkins to a local after school program serving the needs of K-5 families (planned/branch)
• Taking flowers to an elderly neighbor whose spouse is in a memory care facility (random/individual)

“Having witnessed the random acts of kindness firsthand, I can attest that they left our team members feeling fulfilled, our members feeling valued, and our communities at large feeling optimistic that kindness still matters,” said Tim Dizney, manager of SELCO’s Redmond Branch. Dizney’s team hosted a free bagel morning at a local bakery for the first 50 customers of the day, in addition to other random acts throughout the community.

For more information and photos, visit the SELCO 85 Acts of Kindness page.

About SELCO Community Credit Union:

Founded 85 years ago by a group of fiscally minded teachers, Springfield-based SELCO Community Credit Union today serves more than 143,000 members as one of the largest and longstanding Oregon-based credit unions. A not-for-profit, federally insured, member-driven financial cooperative with more than $2.5 billion in assets, SELCO provides its member-owners with exceptional rates and low fees on a full range of financial products and services, including banking, mortgages, personal and business loans, investments, and insurance. Membership is available to anyone who lives or works in one of the 27 Oregon counties SELCO serves. For more information or to become a member today, stop by one of SELCO’s 14 branches, visit selco.org, or call 800-445-4483.