Evansville credit union wins national community service award
March 20, 2006

Donna Tichenor (right), the president of Evansville FCU, represented the credit union in Washington, D.C. where she accepted the award from Diana Roberts (left), chairman of the awards committee for the Credit Union National Association. Tichenor’s credit union raised $42,000 and built a house through Habitat for Humanity.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Evansville Federal Credit Union (FCU) has won a first place award in the national competition for the Dora Maxwell Social Responsibility Recognition Award Program for credit unions.

This awards program, sponsored by the Indiana Credit Union League and the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) honors credit unions for their involvement in community projects and activities. Credit unions of all sizes, from across the country, were honored at a reception in Washington, D.C. recently. Evansville FCU won first place in the category for credit unions with assets of $20-50 million.

The credit union realizes that home ownership is the American Dream. Evansville FCU made the dream a reality for one family by raising $42,000 and building a house through Habitat for Humanity. The credit union partnered with Prudential Prime Locations for fundraising and had a special partnership with students at Central High School in Evansville. The students, who are fans of The Apprentice TV show, were split up into teams, given start-up money (a grant from the Southwest Indiana Network for Education) and ran businesses to grow the seed money into larger amounts. Students raised $3,600 toward the house. Other fundraising activities throughout the year included golf scrambles, bowl-a-thons, car washes, selling chocolate bars, and a skip-a-pay promotion to members where a portion of the fee they paid to skip a loan payment was applied to the Habitat House fund. The credit union staff also bagged groceries, held a drawing for a TV, a grill and a trip to Cancun. After the money was raised, credit union employees helped build the house, specifically framing, roofing, and putting up walls, siding and gutters.

The competition is named after Dora Maxwell, a credit union pioneer, who worked with several organizations to improve the living standards of the poor and needy.

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