The Great Depression and the decades leading up to it forcedmany to look beyond their comfort zones just to be able to surviveanother day.

Be it a bartering system that exchanged services for bread andfruits and vegetables or a small group of factory workers poolingtheir wages to form a lending system after being shunned by banks,survival became the impetus.

Despite the intense heat on credit unions and business lendingthese days and the critics who condemn their efforts to expandsaying the moves are too risky to undertake, cooperatives have beenoffering business loans in some shape or form since the movementformed in the United States more than a century ago.