President's Message

“Inspiring hope for a global community” is the theme of this year's International Credit Union Day. The stated purpose of the theme is “to reflect how credit unions contribute to a brighter future by providing financial empowerment to people all over the world through financial services, education and support.”

All great things. And credit unions do great things really well. But truly inspiring hope requires us to go a little further than reflecting our contributions. If hope involves a trusting expectation that we will achieve our desired future outcome, we must inspire action. To have hope is to love the promise of the future.

In celebration, I repost a President’s Message from a few weeks ago in which the League highlights a man in our community who inspires hopeful action in his community and helps give me hope in a brighter future for all of us:

President’s Message September 22, 2020

“I made a pact to myself when I joined the police force to protect the community and to serve it,” says Officer Jim Barrett of the Hartford Police Department. And he does just that.

Officer Barrett not only created the Homeless Outreach division of the HPD, he puts his own hard‑earned money into it. As one member of the community says, Officer Barrett does not just give away water and clothing, he is really giving the homeless and the addicted community a chance. And it is clear to see his generosity and dedication to some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Officer Barrett does more than give people chances. In a community critically short on chances, that should be enough to garner our respect and support for Officer Barrett’s work. 

More than handing out chances, Officer Barrett builds important relationships when he distributes clothing, hygiene equipment, food, and PPE to people. And out of these relationships, hope emerges.

But understanding hope can a pesky thing. At its core, hope includes desire – wanting. But hope and wanting are false equivalents. Sure, we hope it will be sunny tomorrow, or we hope that traffic will be light at rush hour but, as I read somewhere, those things are just “wasted wishes.” 

In my view, hope involves belief and expectation. Hope includes setting aside the wasted wishes and instead harnessing the power of our communities and relationships to create confidence in ourselves to improve our circumstances. I hear stories every day of the credit union that goes above and beyond to help its member build credit and learn how to borrow and save better. That hope for the future came from growing the relationship beyond that of lender-borrower.

When he sees someone get out of homelessness and grow to financial independence, Office Barrett says, “You can’t put a price on that.” Maybe we can’t put a price on that, but we can lower the cost.

Here’s what we can do to help:

We would like to help Officer Barrett secure more space to store his supplies. Perhaps one of our members has a spare room or basement area to store shelf-stable goods (clothing, shoes, toothpaste, etc.) Maybe we could collect funds to pay for an external locking container to be placed on PD property. Of course, each of us can donate supplies to help Officer Barrett carry out his community mission.

It is in our DNA to build equity and inclusiveness in our membership. Thanks to Officer Barrett, there is an entire population of unbanked people just outside our doors who are ready to hope.

Please check out the CNN profile of Officer Barrett’s good community work here:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/09/14/btc-ct-officer-helps-homeless.cn

As always, thank you for the opportunity to serve you another week,
Bruce