September 3, 2024 • 21 mins
In this episode, host Michele Enriquez and Patelco's Community Giving Partner Cara Houck, discuss the powerful community impact of Patelco Credit Union, focusing on support for local nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity, United Way, Children's Miracle Network and more. Join us as we discuss how Patelco collaborates with organizations to tackle pressing issues like homelessness and economic inequality in Northern California. Discover the meaningful ways Patelco is making a difference, not just through financial services, but by educating communities and fostering long-term change.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Thanks for joining today's episodeof Small Talks for Big Change, where
we help simplify financial topics tohelp with your financial wellness.
Greetings, everyone out there.
My name is Michelle Enriquez, yourhost here at Patelco Credit Union.
On the show, we try to inspireways to improve financial wellness,
and today we're going to highlightPatelco's community giving program
(00:24):
that supports local non profitorganizations here in the Bay Area.
That extend financial wellnesssupport to the community.
And I'm super excited to welcomePatelco's community relations partner,
Kara Hauk, to the studio today toshare all the wonderful things that
we're doing to support our communities.
Kara, it's been a long time coming.
(00:44):
Welcome to the studio.
Thank you so much for having me, Michelle.
I'm so happy to be here today becauseyou know I love talking about what I do
and what Patelco does in the community.
But not only that, I've beenlistening to your podcast and
I have to say I'm a big fan.
So getting a little, you know,excited today to be here.
(01:05):
I'm very honored to be your guest.
So thanks for having me.
And we get to have lunch afterthis, our favorite thing to do.
Awesome.
In debrief.
So, Cara, your program is reallyamazing and seems to be growing.
I'm going to rattle off somestats just from last year.
In 2023, we partnered with 35community organizations, so
(01:26):
those are local nonprofits.
We provided a thousand backpacksfull of supplies to elementary,
high school, and college students.
We supported 11 high schoolstudent interns with real
work experience and skills.
Thank you.
We donated 300 new toys and giftcards during the holidays, provided
over a thousand new socks to severalorganizations around our service
(01:48):
area, and this is the big one.
Our telco team members volunteeredover 2, 000 hours to community
organizations, which is almost twice whatwe had given or done the year before.
Tell everybody about, a little bit aboutyourself and our community giving program.
Absolutely.
, thank you for highlighting some of thosegreat things that we did in the last year.
(02:09):
However, one thing that strikesme when I hear a lot of those is.
how much our team members contributed toall of that that we gave to the community.
So it's really a part ofour culture here at Botelco.
I've been here for about six yearsand I have to tell you, we do new and
different things every single year.
We get new partners, wehave new opportunities.
(02:30):
It's really exciting what we'reable to do . But as I mentioned,
one of the things I love doinghere is being able to contribute.
I love how supportive and passionate ouramazing team members are when it comes
to giving and I love seeing the ways wecan serve not only our members, but also
people in need I actually came from anon profit background, so I have a unique
(02:51):
perspective and experience, , doing that.
So I always feel like First and foremost,we want to find out what the community
needs from the people who are doing,you know, the work every day so that
we can talk to the experts about howwe can best help so before I came to
work at Patelco, I spent my careerworking in nonprofit organizations.
As I mentioned, I was educatingyouth, supporting seniors, providing
(03:14):
food and housing for those in need.
So I'm familiar with all of thosedifferent areas making the transition to
working at Patelco wasn't difficult sincewe're a not for profit organization with a
mission to help people live better lives.
That is super important to me.
So Credit Unions, as you know, believein people helping people and we
have a mission to provide financialeducation and support our members in
(03:36):
living their best financial lives.
Being part of a mission drivenorganization is what gives
me joy and helps me grow.
keep me passionate about what I do here.
But I also want to emphasize whatyou said earlier too, is we do a lot
of direct service , but we also helporganizations so they can pass those
same skills and ability and educationson to the people that they serve.
(03:57):
And there are so many great organizationsin the Bay Area that are doing great
work out there, you know, similarto us and to your point, our, our
missions really align in that way.
And It's no secret that there's a tonof need in our communities, especially
here in the Bay Area, particularly aroundaffordable housing and food insecurity.
A couple stats, I grabbed, thatare really kind of alarming.
(04:21):
The Bay Area has an estimated28, 000 people experiencing
homelessness on any given day.
And California accounts for25 percent of the entire U.
S.
homeless population.
Okay, let that sink in for a sec.
The vast majority are unshelteredand seek help from these local non
profits that we're talking about.
And then regarding food insecurity, agroup called Each Green Corner conducted
(04:44):
a 2020 study that shows about 870, 000people in the Bay Area are food insecure.
And that represents about 11.
5 percent of the Bay Area population.
Right?
Alarming.
Striking.
But again, this is thereason why we do what we do.
What's Patelco's approachto supporting this need,
(05:05):
particularly in those two areas?
Yeah, well those are somestaggering statistics for sure
when you think about them.
And we all know, you know, arefamiliar with it just from seeing it
and what we've experienced ourselves.
And you know, there are so manyneeds in general in the community.
And of course, we'd loveto support them all.
We want to really make a differencewith our programs, so we focus
(05:28):
our efforts into specific areas.
Battelco's chosen four essentialneeds in which we focus our efforts,
and we partner with organizationsthat are addressing just these needs.
, and so that we can make a realdifference in just these four areas.
They're affordable housing,children's health, food security,
and financial education.
(05:50):
So I'm going to talk a littlebit more about what we do in
each of those different areas.
We, we work with lots of differentorganizations, as you mentioned
earlier, , but we do try to focus ourefforts on some of the big ones that
are really addressing these needs.
, of course, the statistics you talkedabout were about housing and food and we,
most of us have been affected by that andthe way the economy is right now, right?
(06:12):
We saw the long lines at thefood banks during the pandemic.
And all those, we aren'tseeing those long lines now.
I've heard from the food banksthat the need has not decreased.
Yep.
Inflation isn't helping, right?
Exactly.
So people, they're still feedingas many people as they did
before during the pandemic.
So that's one of ourpillars, food security.
(06:33):
We support seven different foodbanks within our footprint and
service area because we thinkit's so important to help them.
Many of us have been personallyaffected by the housing costs, you
know, and we support affordable housing.
, I used to say a few years ago, we live inthe Bay Area, of course we have to support
affordable housing, but that's not justtrue for the Bay Area anymore, right?
(06:56):
People across the country havefelt the housing increases and
it's a struggle for so many people.
And we love working with, , onelarge organization that we're gonna
talk about in a little bit here inthe Bay Area specifically, who's
doing a lot to address this need.
We also support children's health.
Uh, when the way we do that specificallyis through Children's Miracle Network.
(07:18):
And I have to say that's kind of acredit union thing across the country.
I mean, many people who arefamiliar with other credit unions
probably have also been involvedwith Children's Miracle Network.
In fact, , we have a national organizationcalled Credit Union for Kids where
we do special fundraising for them.
Patelco is involved inmany different, fundraising
events, , all across the state.
(07:41):
, and even the region in the areajust to support Children's Miracle
Network and to help all the children.
, it's been so fun for me to be ableto do, tours in the local hospitals
to see the specific things thatwe've been able to purchase because
of the money that we've raised
and then finally, and I hate to leavethis to the end, because this is who we
(08:01):
are, right, is financial education, right?
So of course, we want toshare our expertise out in the
community as much as possible.
, and as, again, as an organizationthat believes in people, helping
people live their best lives,we provide financial education.
, and of course, that's a lot of your team.
Near and dear to my heart, for sure.
(08:22):
We definitely believe that a morefinancially savvy person is a
more financially healthy person.
Absolutely.
And I love how much our teams worktogether, too, because financial education
is really woven in and through all thegiving we do to the community and with
the organizations that we work with.
Yep.
And you know where we come up with thebest ideas, Kara, is over lunch, don't we?
(08:43):
Oh my God, you keep bringing uplunch because you know we love food.
I'm already hungry.
Alright, can we talk about acouple of these organizations in
particular that we support becausethe work that they do is so amazing.
First is the United Way of the Bay Areawho provide immediate and long term
support for employment, housing, financialstability, and helping meet basic needs.
(09:05):
They've got these spark point centers.
Right.
And these centers serve lowincome families seeking to
improve their financial situation.
You can even find one of these centersat our local community colleges
and there seem to be more and morepopping up at college campuses.
But we've been supporting them formany years and in different varieties.
We've provided backpacks in the past.
(09:26):
We support their centers with creditbuilding programs for their clients.
But we came up, probably over a lunch,with a cool emergency savings program.
Can you share a littlebit more about that?
Absolutely.
This is just another exampleof how we work together and how
important it is to, you know, weavefinancial education into everything
we do and give to the community.
(09:48):
Well, the Spark Your Savings Programis a pilot grant program exclusively
for clients of the United Way Bay AreaSparkPoint Centers, as you mentioned.
The program aims to establish anemergency fund, create savings
habits, and increase the financialwell being of the participants.
It was created mostlybecause only 44 percent of U.
(10:10):
S.
adults would pay an emergencyexpense of 1, 000 from their savings.
Isn't that crazy?
Yes.
1, 000.
Most people don't have that in savings.
So if they have an emergency comeup, which you know we all do,
frequently of at least 1, 000.
I mean, I know when I have a car expense,there you go, 1, 000 is nothing, right?
(10:31):
It's crazy.
But most people have to borrow,use credit, borrow from a
friend, borrow from a family.
So we really wanted to address that needand , giving people, participants in
this program the opportunity to reallyget the financial wellness resources and
education that they need to help them notonly learn how important it is to have
(10:54):
savings, create savings for an emergency.
But more importantly, to create thishabit going forward, so that they get
used to putting money away and havingthat savings available when you really
need it, because we know we all do.
Absolutely.
And that's great, Carrie.
You know, here at Patoko, we're alwaysencouraging folks to save and really
emphasizing on that behavioral change.
(11:17):
That's the best part about the programthat I love is it's really inspiring
behaviors to enact change, , and then theultimate goal is that they've got this
emergency savings account, which is great.
Awesome.
Let's also talk about Habitatfor Humanity for a second.
Can you tell us about thatpartner and what they do?
So wait a minute.
You said I can only talkabout them for a second?
Just a second.
Did you know I could talkabout them for a long time?
(11:39):
I love Habitat for Humanity.
Me too.
And I'm sure a lot ofour listeners do too.
I mean, they're an internationalorganization that's been
around for many, many years.
And you know, they're soamazing at creating affordable
housing in the Bay Area.
And we have been a partner of the EastBay Silicon Valley chapter for many years.
We've been involved with themin pretty much almost any
(12:00):
way that you can be involved.
, we funded loans in the past.
We provide a financial education.
We've had some of our experts in homeloans go and talk and do education
with all their Habitat families.
We even had our VP of home loans VinSalinas served on their board for
many, many years and just finished.
(12:20):
Term as their board chair.
So we've been very involved with them.
We also work on a lot of programswith them throughout the year.
, and we do a lot of volunteering and I haveto say I have seen a lot of our , team
members who are used to sitting behinda computer go out there swinging hammers
(12:41):
all day long, digging ditches, caulkingbuildings, just whatever needs to be done.
And one thing that's so inspiring is ourCEO, Erin Mendez, has done the same thing.
She's joined our volunteer groupsand spent the day out there.
You know, swinging a hammer to helppeople with affordable housing.
It's very inspiring to see.
Yeah, part of our support of Habitatfor Humanity includes getting
(13:05):
dirty and actually helping withthe builds, which is really fun.
I learned how to use a saw last year.
That was fun, Kara.
Oh.
Hopefully we can do that again this year.
You know what?
One of my secrets is, I alwaysplan our volunteer days.
on Fridays, because it's an eighthour hard labor, and I want people
to have the weekend to recoverbefore they come back to work.
You're so good.
(13:25):
Also, if I need to go to the emergencyroom, I have the weekend to recover.
Don't even say that.
We had so much fun last year.
I know our team members reallylook forward to those Habitat
for Humanity Playhouse builds.
I also understand that we help themwith their biggest fundraising event.
Tell us about Cycle of Hope.
Well, it's very exciting.
They actually started Cycle ofHope in East Bay Silicon Valley
(13:47):
area just about seven years ago.
So, , within my first few weeksof joining Patelco, I got to be
involved in the very first event here.
And, they've done it in theSouth Bay until last year.
They moved it up to be hereon our campus in Dublin.
We're very excited to be hosts of it.
And it's a wonderful event.
(14:07):
It's a ride a thon, right?
So you get sponsors tohelp you raise money.
They raised well over 300, 000 lastyear, and it made such a difference
for the ongoing budget and how muchthey're able to do throughout the
year because of this one big event.
So we've been the presentingsponsor for the last seven years.
And then, like I said, this willbe our second year hosting it here.
(14:28):
I encourage people to come out and ride.
Yep.
This is in October, October 20th.
So you have time to start ridingand getting ready for the ride.
, there's several different options.
There's, , 11 miles.
So if you're don't want todrive, ride a lot, that's okay.
There's a 30 mile and there's a62, which is also a metric century.
And they've curated these amazingcourses in our hills around here.
(14:52):
There it's beautiful rides.
And I tell people it's notcheating to have an electric bike.
I saw a few electric bikes last year.
It gave me some ideas for this year.
Yeah.
And then we also have a kid's ride.
And one of the things that was so fun lastyear is, you know, we share our building
here with the sheriff's department andthey came out on the kid's ride and
(15:14):
one of the motorcycle officers rodewith the lights going and the sirens
and the kids got to ride their bikes.
That was fun.
It was, it was super fun.
So anybody who's listening to thisand says, well, I don't ride a bike.
Don't worry.
We have a lot of other things you can do.
We need lots of volunteers tobe out on the course because
there's, , there's a sag wagon.
(15:36):
There'll be, spots along the waywhere you can stop and get, first
aid or you can get any kindof snacks, that kind of thing.
And so we need lots of volunteers.
And of course, here at the startfinish line, , there's lots of things
you can do to support the ride.
So it's going to be a really fun day.
And as anyone listening who isa friend and family of Patelco,
(15:56):
they can join the Patelco team.
So when you register,look for the Patelco team.
If you use code PATELCO20, capitalletters P A T E L C O 20, and
then you can save 20 percent offyour registration for the ride.
And you can go and registerat habitatcycleofhope.
(16:18):
org.
habitatcycleofhope.
org So, we're very excited to behosting it and to have people come and
be involved in this wonderful event.
There's other things that happenalong with the race, right?
There's some activities we gotgoing on in the parking lot here.
Yeah, in fact, I love to talk about this.
(16:38):
You mentioned the Habitatfor Humanity Playhouses.
Yes.
Where that's one of ourinternal volunteer events.
People love doing it.
Habitat actually brings allof the materials to build
playhouses here to our campus.
We've got our team members outthere building these playhouses.
They all have decorationswith different themes.
They make actual roofs.
(16:59):
It's amazing.
And, um, and then we're going to dothat a couple of days before the cycle
of hope they'll be out on the ride.
So the kids will be able to play inthese playhouses on, on the ride.
Another thing that we starteddoing this year is building
bikes for kids with an organized.
It's an organization called Kids BikeLane, and as it happens, they, some of
(17:21):
the people involved in that organization,also are cyclists in the Cycle of Hope.
So we're all working together.
We're going to build these bikeshere with our team members, bring
them to the day, um, of Cycle of Hopeand give them to Habitat families.
Amazing.
For their kids.
Amazing.
So even novice cyclists can still enjoythe course on a nice day out here in
(17:47):
Dublin, our beautiful terrain here.
Absolutely.
Bring an electric bike if they've got one.
I was gonna say, electric bike was goodand you have time to, you know, plan,
but 11 miles, that's not too bad, right?
And I've heard that there'sno big hills on that course.
A couple of the other longer oneshave a little more challenges.
But you also remember, there'sbeer waiting for you at the end.
(18:09):
Well, sold.
That's part of the celebration.
And there's food.
We've already talked aboutfood, how important that is.
Well, you definitely, you had me at beer,and then you definitely had me at food.
So talk about some of these, , areasin which the support will, , help.
help go to?
Absolutely.
I mean, , we know that Habitatcreates housing, right?
(18:31):
And affordable housing.
And through this big fundraiser,, itover the last, , many, many years that
they've been doing it, they've raised 1.
6 million for Habitatthrough the cycle of hope.
So it's kind of amazing how muchthey've raised., so they do home
ownership so that people who wouldnot normally be able to afford to
get into a house are able to do that.
(18:52):
They make affordable mortgages and,with people who have limited incomes.
They also have a program a lot ofpeople haven't heard about, which
is the Home Preservation Program.
They help people with limitedincomes to stay in their homes.
There might be some real, repairs,big repairs that need to be made.
I heard a story last year aboutsomeone who almost their whole
(19:13):
kitchen floor had rotted out.
Ugh.
And they weren't able to affordto fix it themselves and Habitat
came in and fixed it and enabledthe family to stay in the house.
And then of course, they providea lot of housing and financial
counseling because they don't justwant to put people in housing.
They want to keep supporting them tostay in their housing and meet the rest
(19:34):
of their financial goals in their life.
And again, you know, thatis right aligned with us and
Patoka and what our mission is.
to help people live the bestfinancial lives they can live.
Oh, I love that.
I just got goosebumps.
Thank you for sharing all of that, Kara.
So, all right, to wrap it up, we'vegot our community giving program,
which is doing amazing things.
(19:57):
It involves all of our Patelco teammembers to really kind of extend that
support out to the community and workwith all of those non profit organizations
that are doing such great work out there.
If you're interested in learningmore, More about our partners and
some of the work that we're doing.
You can go to our website at patelco.
org and click the financial wellnessbutton under the community tab and find
(20:20):
out more about those programs and findmore information about cycle of hope.
Kara mentioned a discountcode that's patelco20 to save
20 percent at registration.
And again, you can findmore information at patelco.
org under the financial wellness taband the community tab specifically.
under cycle of hope.
(20:41):
Kara, it was so great tohave you in the studio today.
I can't wait for lunch.
I can't wait to have you backand talk about the next time
we're going to have you in here.
October 20th is the day for cycle of hope.
We hope that you join us.
We hope that you'll visit ourwebsite to find more information.
And we want to thank Kara Haugfor being here, our community
relations partner here at Patelco.
(21:02):
Well, thank you so much.
I had such a good time.
I was looking forward to this for so long.
And if I knew you were goingto treat me to lunch, I would
have come here a long time ago.
We'll come here more often.
Come on!
Yeah, next week, I'll be back.
All right.
Well, that concludes today's episodeof Small Talks for Big Change, where
we help simplify financial topics tohelp with your financial wellness.
We'll see you next time.
(21:23):
Adelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.
Thanks for joining today's episodeof Small Talks for Big Change, where
we help simplify financial topics tohelp with your financial wellness.
Greetings, everyone out there.
My name is Michelle Enriquez, yourhost here at Patelco Credit Union.
On the show, we try to inspireways to improve financial wellness,
and today we're going to highlightPatelco's community giving program
(00:24):
that supports local non profitorganizations here in the Bay Area.
That extend financial wellnesssupport to the community.
And I'm super excited to welcomePatelco's community relations partner,
Kara Hauk, to the studio today toshare all the wonderful things that
we're doing to support our communities.
Kara, it's been a long time coming.
(00:44):
Welcome to the studio.
Thank you so much for having me, Michelle.
I'm so happy to be here today becauseyou know I love talking about what I do
and what Patelco does in the community.
But not only that, I've beenlistening to your podcast and
I have to say I'm a big fan.
So getting a little, you know,excited today to be here.
(01:05):
I'm very honored to be your guest.
So thanks for having me.
And we get to have lunch afterthis, our favorite thing to do.
Awesome.
In debrief.
So, Cara, your program is reallyamazing and seems to be growing.
I'm going to rattle off somestats just from last year.
In 2023, we partnered with 35community organizations, so
(01:26):
those are local nonprofits.
We provided a thousand backpacksfull of supplies to elementary,
high school, and college students.
We supported 11 high schoolstudent interns with real
work experience and skills.
Thank you.
We donated 300 new toys and giftcards during the holidays, provided
over a thousand new socks to severalorganizations around our service
(01:48):
area, and this is the big one.
Our telco team members volunteeredover 2, 000 hours to community
organizations, which is almost twice whatwe had given or done the year before.
Tell everybody about, a little bit aboutyourself and our community giving program.
Absolutely.
, thank you for highlighting some of thosegreat things that we did in the last year.
(02:09):
However, one thing that strikesme when I hear a lot of those is.
how much our team members contributed toall of that that we gave to the community.
So it's really a part ofour culture here at Botelco.
I've been here for about six yearsand I have to tell you, we do new and
different things every single year.
We get new partners, wehave new opportunities.
(02:30):
It's really exciting what we'reable to do . But as I mentioned,
one of the things I love doinghere is being able to contribute.
I love how supportive and passionate ouramazing team members are when it comes
to giving and I love seeing the ways wecan serve not only our members, but also
people in need I actually came from anon profit background, so I have a unique
(02:51):
perspective and experience, , doing that.
So I always feel like First and foremost,we want to find out what the community
needs from the people who are doing,you know, the work every day so that
we can talk to the experts about howwe can best help so before I came to
work at Patelco, I spent my careerworking in nonprofit organizations.
As I mentioned, I was educatingyouth, supporting seniors, providing
(03:14):
food and housing for those in need.
So I'm familiar with all of thosedifferent areas making the transition to
working at Patelco wasn't difficult sincewe're a not for profit organization with a
mission to help people live better lives.
That is super important to me.
So Credit Unions, as you know, believein people helping people and we
have a mission to provide financialeducation and support our members in
(03:36):
living their best financial lives.
Being part of a mission drivenorganization is what gives
me joy and helps me grow.
keep me passionate about what I do here.
But I also want to emphasize whatyou said earlier too, is we do a lot
of direct service , but we also helporganizations so they can pass those
same skills and ability and educationson to the people that they serve.
(03:57):
And there are so many great organizationsin the Bay Area that are doing great
work out there, you know, similarto us and to your point, our, our
missions really align in that way.
And It's no secret that there's a tonof need in our communities, especially
here in the Bay Area, particularly aroundaffordable housing and food insecurity.
A couple stats, I grabbed, thatare really kind of alarming.
(04:21):
The Bay Area has an estimated28, 000 people experiencing
homelessness on any given day.
And California accounts for25 percent of the entire U.
S.
homeless population.
Okay, let that sink in for a sec.
The vast majority are unshelteredand seek help from these local non
profits that we're talking about.
And then regarding food insecurity, agroup called Each Green Corner conducted
(04:44):
a 2020 study that shows about 870, 000people in the Bay Area are food insecure.
And that represents about 11.
5 percent of the Bay Area population.
Right?
Alarming.
Striking.
But again, this is thereason why we do what we do.
What's Patelco's approachto supporting this need,
(05:05):
particularly in those two areas?
Yeah, well those are somestaggering statistics for sure
when you think about them.
And we all know, you know, arefamiliar with it just from seeing it
and what we've experienced ourselves.
And you know, there are so manyneeds in general in the community.
And of course, we'd loveto support them all.
We want to really make a differencewith our programs, so we focus
(05:28):
our efforts into specific areas.
Battelco's chosen four essentialneeds in which we focus our efforts,
and we partner with organizationsthat are addressing just these needs.
, and so that we can make a realdifference in just these four areas.
They're affordable housing,children's health, food security,
and financial education.
(05:50):
So I'm going to talk a littlebit more about what we do in
each of those different areas.
We, we work with lots of differentorganizations, as you mentioned
earlier, , but we do try to focus ourefforts on some of the big ones that
are really addressing these needs.
, of course, the statistics you talkedabout were about housing and food and we,
most of us have been affected by that andthe way the economy is right now, right?
(06:12):
We saw the long lines at thefood banks during the pandemic.
And all those, we aren'tseeing those long lines now.
I've heard from the food banksthat the need has not decreased.
Yep.
Inflation isn't helping, right?
Exactly.
So people, they're still feedingas many people as they did
before during the pandemic.
So that's one of ourpillars, food security.
(06:33):
We support seven different foodbanks within our footprint and
service area because we thinkit's so important to help them.
Many of us have been personallyaffected by the housing costs, you
know, and we support affordable housing.
, I used to say a few years ago, we live inthe Bay Area, of course we have to support
affordable housing, but that's not justtrue for the Bay Area anymore, right?
(06:56):
People across the country havefelt the housing increases and
it's a struggle for so many people.
And we love working with, , onelarge organization that we're gonna
talk about in a little bit here inthe Bay Area specifically, who's
doing a lot to address this need.
We also support children's health.
Uh, when the way we do that specificallyis through Children's Miracle Network.
(07:18):
And I have to say that's kind of acredit union thing across the country.
I mean, many people who arefamiliar with other credit unions
probably have also been involvedwith Children's Miracle Network.
In fact, , we have a national organizationcalled Credit Union for Kids where
we do special fundraising for them.
Patelco is involved inmany different, fundraising
events, , all across the state.
(07:41):
, and even the region in the areajust to support Children's Miracle
Network and to help all the children.
, it's been so fun for me to be ableto do, tours in the local hospitals
to see the specific things thatwe've been able to purchase because
of the money that we've raised
and then finally, and I hate to leavethis to the end, because this is who we
(08:01):
are, right, is financial education, right?
So of course, we want toshare our expertise out in the
community as much as possible.
, and as, again, as an organizationthat believes in people, helping
people live their best lives,we provide financial education.
, and of course, that's a lot of your team.
Near and dear to my heart, for sure.
(08:22):
We definitely believe that a morefinancially savvy person is a
more financially healthy person.
Absolutely.
And I love how much our teams worktogether, too, because financial education
is really woven in and through all thegiving we do to the community and with
the organizations that we work with.
Yep.
And you know where we come up with thebest ideas, Kara, is over lunch, don't we?
(08:43):
Oh my God, you keep bringing uplunch because you know we love food.
I'm already hungry.
Alright, can we talk about acouple of these organizations in
particular that we support becausethe work that they do is so amazing.
First is the United Way of the Bay Areawho provide immediate and long term
support for employment, housing, financialstability, and helping meet basic needs.
(09:05):
They've got these spark point centers.
Right.
And these centers serve lowincome families seeking to
improve their financial situation.
You can even find one of these centersat our local community colleges
and there seem to be more and morepopping up at college campuses.
But we've been supporting them formany years and in different varieties.
We've provided backpacks in the past.
(09:26):
We support their centers with creditbuilding programs for their clients.
But we came up, probably over a lunch,with a cool emergency savings program.
Can you share a littlebit more about that?
Absolutely.
This is just another exampleof how we work together and how
important it is to, you know, weavefinancial education into everything
we do and give to the community.
(09:48):
Well, the Spark Your Savings Programis a pilot grant program exclusively
for clients of the United Way Bay AreaSparkPoint Centers, as you mentioned.
The program aims to establish anemergency fund, create savings
habits, and increase the financialwell being of the participants.
It was created mostlybecause only 44 percent of U.
(10:10):
S.
adults would pay an emergencyexpense of 1, 000 from their savings.
Isn't that crazy?
Yes.
1, 000.
Most people don't have that in savings.
So if they have an emergency comeup, which you know we all do,
frequently of at least 1, 000.
I mean, I know when I have a car expense,there you go, 1, 000 is nothing, right?
(10:31):
It's crazy.
But most people have to borrow,use credit, borrow from a
friend, borrow from a family.
So we really wanted to address that needand , giving people, participants in
this program the opportunity to reallyget the financial wellness resources and
education that they need to help them notonly learn how important it is to have
(10:54):
savings, create savings for an emergency.
But more importantly, to create thishabit going forward, so that they get
used to putting money away and havingthat savings available when you really
need it, because we know we all do.
Absolutely.
And that's great, Carrie.
You know, here at Patoko, we're alwaysencouraging folks to save and really
emphasizing on that behavioral change.
(11:17):
That's the best part about the programthat I love is it's really inspiring
behaviors to enact change, , and then theultimate goal is that they've got this
emergency savings account, which is great.
Awesome.
Let's also talk about Habitatfor Humanity for a second.
Can you tell us about thatpartner and what they do?
So wait a minute.
You said I can only talkabout them for a second?
Just a second.
Did you know I could talkabout them for a long time?
(11:39):
I love Habitat for Humanity.
Me too.
And I'm sure a lot ofour listeners do too.
I mean, they're an internationalorganization that's been
around for many, many years.
And you know, they're soamazing at creating affordable
housing in the Bay Area.
And we have been a partner of the EastBay Silicon Valley chapter for many years.
We've been involved with themin pretty much almost any
(12:00):
way that you can be involved.
, we funded loans in the past.
We provide a financial education.
We've had some of our experts in homeloans go and talk and do education
with all their Habitat families.
We even had our VP of home loans VinSalinas served on their board for
many, many years and just finished.
(12:20):
Term as their board chair.
So we've been very involved with them.
We also work on a lot of programswith them throughout the year.
, and we do a lot of volunteering and I haveto say I have seen a lot of our , team
members who are used to sitting behinda computer go out there swinging hammers
(12:41):
all day long, digging ditches, caulkingbuildings, just whatever needs to be done.
And one thing that's so inspiring is ourCEO, Erin Mendez, has done the same thing.
She's joined our volunteer groupsand spent the day out there.
You know, swinging a hammer to helppeople with affordable housing.
It's very inspiring to see.
Yeah, part of our support of Habitatfor Humanity includes getting
(13:05):
dirty and actually helping withthe builds, which is really fun.
I learned how to use a saw last year.
That was fun, Kara.
Oh.
Hopefully we can do that again this year.
You know what?
One of my secrets is, I alwaysplan our volunteer days.
on Fridays, because it's an eighthour hard labor, and I want people
to have the weekend to recoverbefore they come back to work.
You're so good.
(13:25):
Also, if I need to go to the emergencyroom, I have the weekend to recover.
Don't even say that.
We had so much fun last year.
I know our team members reallylook forward to those Habitat
for Humanity Playhouse builds.
I also understand that we help themwith their biggest fundraising event.
Tell us about Cycle of Hope.
Well, it's very exciting.
They actually started Cycle ofHope in East Bay Silicon Valley
(13:47):
area just about seven years ago.
So, , within my first few weeksof joining Patelco, I got to be
involved in the very first event here.
And, they've done it in theSouth Bay until last year.
They moved it up to be hereon our campus in Dublin.
We're very excited to be hosts of it.
And it's a wonderful event.
(14:07):
It's a ride a thon, right?
So you get sponsors tohelp you raise money.
They raised well over 300, 000 lastyear, and it made such a difference
for the ongoing budget and how muchthey're able to do throughout the
year because of this one big event.
So we've been the presentingsponsor for the last seven years.
And then, like I said, this willbe our second year hosting it here.
(14:28):
I encourage people to come out and ride.
Yep.
This is in October, October 20th.
So you have time to start ridingand getting ready for the ride.
, there's several different options.
There's, , 11 miles.
So if you're don't want todrive, ride a lot, that's okay.
There's a 30 mile and there's a62, which is also a metric century.
And they've curated these amazingcourses in our hills around here.
(14:52):
There it's beautiful rides.
And I tell people it's notcheating to have an electric bike.
I saw a few electric bikes last year.
It gave me some ideas for this year.
Yeah.
And then we also have a kid's ride.
And one of the things that was so fun lastyear is, you know, we share our building
here with the sheriff's department andthey came out on the kid's ride and
(15:14):
one of the motorcycle officers rodewith the lights going and the sirens
and the kids got to ride their bikes.
That was fun.
It was, it was super fun.
So anybody who's listening to thisand says, well, I don't ride a bike.
Don't worry.
We have a lot of other things you can do.
We need lots of volunteers tobe out on the course because
there's, , there's a sag wagon.
(15:36):
There'll be, spots along the waywhere you can stop and get, first
aid or you can get any kindof snacks, that kind of thing.
And so we need lots of volunteers.
And of course, here at the startfinish line, , there's lots of things
you can do to support the ride.
So it's going to be a really fun day.
And as anyone listening who isa friend and family of Patelco,
(15:56):
they can join the Patelco team.
So when you register,look for the Patelco team.
If you use code PATELCO20, capitalletters P A T E L C O 20, and
then you can save 20 percent offyour registration for the ride.
And you can go and registerat habitatcycleofhope.
(16:18):
org.
habitatcycleofhope.
org So, we're very excited to behosting it and to have people come and
be involved in this wonderful event.
There's other things that happenalong with the race, right?
There's some activities we gotgoing on in the parking lot here.
Yeah, in fact, I love to talk about this.
(16:38):
You mentioned the Habitatfor Humanity Playhouses.
Yes.
Where that's one of ourinternal volunteer events.
People love doing it.
Habitat actually brings allof the materials to build
playhouses here to our campus.
We've got our team members outthere building these playhouses.
They all have decorationswith different themes.
They make actual roofs.
(16:59):
It's amazing.
And, um, and then we're going to dothat a couple of days before the cycle
of hope they'll be out on the ride.
So the kids will be able to play inthese playhouses on, on the ride.
Another thing that we starteddoing this year is building
bikes for kids with an organized.
It's an organization called Kids BikeLane, and as it happens, they, some of
(17:21):
the people involved in that organization,also are cyclists in the Cycle of Hope.
So we're all working together.
We're going to build these bikeshere with our team members, bring
them to the day, um, of Cycle of Hopeand give them to Habitat families.
Amazing.
For their kids.
Amazing.
So even novice cyclists can still enjoythe course on a nice day out here in
(17:47):
Dublin, our beautiful terrain here.
Absolutely.
Bring an electric bike if they've got one.
I was gonna say, electric bike was goodand you have time to, you know, plan,
but 11 miles, that's not too bad, right?
And I've heard that there'sno big hills on that course.
A couple of the other longer oneshave a little more challenges.
But you also remember, there'sbeer waiting for you at the end.
(18:09):
Well, sold.
That's part of the celebration.
And there's food.
We've already talked aboutfood, how important that is.
Well, you definitely, you had me at beer,and then you definitely had me at food.
So talk about some of these, , areasin which the support will, , help.
help go to?
Absolutely.
I mean, , we know that Habitatcreates housing, right?
(18:31):
And affordable housing.
And through this big fundraiser,, itover the last, , many, many years that
they've been doing it, they've raised 1.
6 million for Habitatthrough the cycle of hope.
So it's kind of amazing how muchthey've raised., so they do home
ownership so that people who wouldnot normally be able to afford to
get into a house are able to do that.
(18:52):
They make affordable mortgages and,with people who have limited incomes.
They also have a program a lot ofpeople haven't heard about, which
is the Home Preservation Program.
They help people with limitedincomes to stay in their homes.
There might be some real, repairs,big repairs that need to be made.
I heard a story last year aboutsomeone who almost their whole
(19:13):
kitchen floor had rotted out.
Ugh.
And they weren't able to affordto fix it themselves and Habitat
came in and fixed it and enabledthe family to stay in the house.
And then of course, they providea lot of housing and financial
counseling because they don't justwant to put people in housing.
They want to keep supporting them tostay in their housing and meet the rest
(19:34):
of their financial goals in their life.
And again, you know, thatis right aligned with us and
Patoka and what our mission is.
to help people live the bestfinancial lives they can live.
Oh, I love that.
I just got goosebumps.
Thank you for sharing all of that, Kara.
So, all right, to wrap it up, we'vegot our community giving program,
which is doing amazing things.
(19:57):
It involves all of our Patelco teammembers to really kind of extend that
support out to the community and workwith all of those non profit organizations
that are doing such great work out there.
If you're interested in learningmore, More about our partners and
some of the work that we're doing.
You can go to our website at patelco.
org and click the financial wellnessbutton under the community tab and find
(20:20):
out more about those programs and findmore information about cycle of hope.
Kara mentioned a discountcode that's patelco20 to save
20 percent at registration.
And again, you can findmore information at patelco.
org under the financial wellness taband the community tab specifically.
under cycle of hope.
(20:41):
Kara, it was so great tohave you in the studio today.
I can't wait for lunch.
I can't wait to have you backand talk about the next time
we're going to have you in here.
October 20th is the day for cycle of hope.
We hope that you join us.
We hope that you'll visit ourwebsite to find more information.
And we want to thank Kara Haugfor being here, our community
relations partner here at Patelco.
(21:02):
Well, thank you so much.
I had such a good time.
I was looking forward to this for so long.
And if I knew you were goingto treat me to lunch, I would
have come here a long time ago.
We'll come here more often.
Come on!
Yeah, next week, I'll be back.
All right.
Well, that concludes today's episodeof Small Talks for Big Change, where
we help simplify financial topics tohelp with your financial wellness.
We'll see you next time.
(21:23):
Adelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.
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