Helping them buy their ride to work
Community Plus CU learns and grows through its nonprime auto lending initiative.
One wintry Saturday morning a couple years ago, a new member and her two preschool daughters walked into Community Plus Federal Credit Union in Rantoul, Illinois, and approached the loan officer’s desk.
The woman told her children, “This is the lady who helped us get our car,” and the girls gave the loan officer a hug. The family had good reason to be thankful: Before qualifying for the loan through the credit union’s new Ride to Work program, the woman was up predawn every weekday, waking her daughters so they could walk together to their child care provider before she caught a ride to work. When they needed groceries, they pulled their wagon to and from the store.
President Michael Daugherty shares this story to illustrate the impact of Community Plus FCU’s commitment to the nonprime auto lending program, which has produced $3.3 million in loans for the $19 million credit union serving 4,000 members since its launch in late 2015.
“It really gave us some validation. The numbers tell us a lot, but it’s these kinds of stories that confirm, ‘Yes, we should be doing this,’” says Daugherty, a CUES member.
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