RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The members of two small credit unions in California will be able to more easily save their coins after their CUs received coin counters from the $985 million Altura Credit Union.

One, Ketema Federal Credit Union in El Cajon, California, is a $2 million, sole sponsor, credit union serving the employees of the Ketema Aerospace company. El Futuro is an $8 million CU headquartered in Porterville, California that was founded in 1966 to serve primarily Hispanic farm workers.

Altura decided to make their older coin machines available to the smaller CUs as part of the Shapiro Group program run by California and Nevada Credit Union League when the CU decided to upgrade to newer models. The Sharpiro Group program pools the resources of the credit union community to help smaller credit unions operate efficiently and effectively.

Lorna Stafford-Bentley, CEO of Ketema, said the arrival of the machine has already boosted foot traffic in the small CU space located on site in the Ketema facility.

“Given our resources, this is never something we would have been able to purchase,” she said.