United Educational Credit Union, Battle Creek, Mich., awarded a $400 bright ideas partnership grant to Bellevue Junior & Senior High journalism students for their meet the press project. The purpose of the project is to create an authentic broadsheet student newspaper for students, staff and the community. The newspaper provided students the opportunity to utilize photography and page design skills and to learn to conduct interviews, surveys and research.

Pacific Service Credit Union, Walnut Creek, Calif., donated $5,000 to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum. The museum will use the funds for programs in low-income schools in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. The program called Animals in the Classroom brings live animals and artifacts to schools for presentations and special educational events. For the past six years, Pacific Service has sponsored exhibits, wildlife science tours, outreach programs and other projects by donating more than $20,000 to the museum.

MidSouth Federal Credit Union, Milledgeville, Ga., made a donation to the Milledgeville-Baldwin County Chamber of Commerce. The donation went toward the chamber of commerce Partners for Progress program which is a both private and public partnership that will meet the current and future needs of Milledgeville and Baldwin County as well as provide for its economic well-being.

Meriwest Credit Union, San Jose, Calif., made a donation of $2,500 to the San Jose Police Athletic League to honor the San Jose Police Departments officers who were involved in the investigation and the apprehension of the suspected “broken nose bandit.” The suspected bandit robbed four other banks in the San Jose area before robbing the Meriwest Credit Union Financial Center. Investigating Detective Mark Pineda and the arresting officer Sgt. Merlin Newton, along with Assistant Chief Dan Katz, Captain Pete Decena and Lt. Rick Martinez of the Robbery Unit were present when Meriwest CEO Christopher Owen and Board Chairman Richard Alves presented the donation to the officers.

Indiana Credit Union League, Hammond, Ind., announced that 17 credit unions from the NWI Chapter raised over $5,500 for the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana. The chapter used radio, billboard, newspaper and other means to gain attention for the campaign. The chapter has a goal for 2008 to raise over $10,000 for the cause.

TruMark Financial Credit Union, Trevose Pa., announced that it's social activities committee donated $550 to Bensalem High School's 9/11 memorial fund. The fund was created to build a memorial in the school's courtyard to honor Bucks County residents who lost their lives on September 11. The committee sponsored a dress down Friday and allowed employees to wear jeans for a five-dollar donation. TruMark learned of the memorial fund through its partnership with Bensalem High School to promote financial literacy. The social activities committee selects a worth cause or organization each month and makes a donation.

Greater Minnesota Credit Union, Mora, Minn., held its second annual Food Shelf Challenge among its employees at five branch officers located in Mora, Milaca, Isle, Elk River and Pine City. Employees were encouraged to donate non-perishable food items and to raise money for each of their local food shelves. Employees donated enough money to purchase the equivalent of 8,500 pounds of food and donated an additional 880 pounds, reaching their goal of over 9,000 pounds to be spread among the food shelves in each of their branch communities. Additionally, employees took part in a grocery grab at Nelson's Market where they competed against seven other teams as to how much they could gather in grocery carts in two minutes. Employees Staci Norby and Cindy Cheney filled their cart with $867 in their allotted time and won the grocery grab of food that was then paid for by Peoples National Bank and donated to the Mora Food Pantry.

OSU Federal Credit Union, Corvallis, Ore., donated a used phone system valued at about $100,000 to Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital. The system includes the main switch, 250 phones, voice messaging, call center software and all the equipment needed for 11 remote locations. OSU decided to donated the system rather than sell it to a wholesaler. The phone system is newer than the hospitals current one and will require less maintenance.

GESA Credit Union, Richland, Wash., raised over $4,000 in support of Junior Achievement. GESA's goal was to raise $3,500. The fundraiser theme was Circus Bowl with bowling teams opting to dress up as circus characters. The two top individual fundraisers were team captains Tracy Rodriguez, who raised $275, and Crystal Stidham, who raised $267. Junior Achievement is a partnership between the business community, educators and volunteers to provide hands-on experimental programs that teach the key concepts of work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy to young people.

Nevada Federal Credit Union, Las Vegas, donated $20,000 to the Nevada Jump$tart Coalition. Donation funds will go toward an annual teacher workshop, activities to increase awareness of Jump$tart's free and low cost financial clearinghouse resource materials and the coalition's overall efforts to increase financial literacy among Nevada's Youth and adults.

DuPont Community Credit Union, Staunton, Va., sponsored the Your Community Cares event with the City of Staunton Parks and Recreation Department. The event hosted over 50 preteen and teenage girls. DuPont hosted a break out session called the Reality Store, which taught the teens the value of money. DuPont also provided temporary tattoos with the Your Community Cares logo, backpacks and blinking heart necklaces.

Los Angeles Police Department FCU, Los Angeles, raised $305,000 for fallen LAPD SWAT Officers Randal Simmons and James Veenstra through donation accounts. After responding to a call that a shooter had killed several family members a shoot out ensued that killed Simmons and left Veenstra in critical condition. Within two hours of learning of the situation individual donation accounts were created and information was posted on LAPFCU's Web site.

Consumers Credit Union, Waukegan, Ill., donated $1,000 in support of People Lending Assistance Network of Grayslake. PLAN provides food, household cleaning items, furniture, school supplies, clothing, appliances and job assistance.

Ent Federal Credit Union, Colorado Springs, Colo., raised over $94,000 for United Way coming directly from employees. The majority of the funds are raised as a result of voluntary payroll deductions. Employees also get creative in their fundraising efforts by holding flamingo flocking events where an employee can make a United Way donation to flock a fellow employee of their choice, which means the employee they pick gets to spend the day sharing their work space with a flock of pink plastic flamingos. To get rid of the flamingos another donation must be made by the flamingo recipient. Other fundraising events include two online auctions, dress down days, candy grams and tickets sold to a breakfast cooked by members of Ent's management staff.

Bragg Mutual Federal Credit Union, Fayetteville, N.C., presented a $3,000 donation check to Kids Voting Cumberland County. Kinds voting Cumberland County provides state-approved K-12 civics curriculum with classroom activities that are easy for teachers to adapt to best fit their needs and make learning about civics relevant to students. The program provides a voting experience that replicated the adult ballot with a full slate of candidates and issues for students. The $3,000 was raised in sales of candy bars at Bragg Mutual's main office and three branches.

Pacific Service Credit Union, Concord, Calif., donated five computers to the Concord Corps of the Salvation Army. The computers will be used by children and senior-citizens for homework and basic computer familiarization. Pacific Service provided the computers through its community involvement program. The program distributed grants to non-profit organizations within the credit union's 12-county field of membership. The five donated computers are fully configured Dell PC's with Pentium 4 processors and 15-inch flat screen monitors.

Goldenwest Credit Union, Ogden, Utah, donated $50,000 to nine local schools. The money was raised during Goldenwest's eight annual 5K For Schools. One hundred percent of the registration fees were donated to the schools and Goldenwest added $5 for each entry received. The race drew the largest crowd in the event's history with 2,600 runners and walkers registered for the event. The nine school use the funds to purchase equipment and materials for the schools and to support a variety of programs including athletics and clubs. In addition to donated $5 for each race, participant Goldenwest donated the registration posters and forms, t-shirts, food, water and other items needed for the race.