New Collins Community Credit Union housing four nonprofits

The newly-opened Collins Community Credit Union is housing four non-profit organizations inside its brand-new building and launching the Hub, a youth educational program for middle school students.

Located directly across the street from its original location, the four non-profits that will be housed are the Leaders, Believers, Achievers Foundation, Empowering Youths of Iowa, Tanager Place, and Neighborhood Finance Corporation.

While the Neighborhood Finance Corporation provides programs to facilitate neighborhood revitalization, the three other programs are geared toward youth programming.

The Tanager Place assists children with mental-health needs and their parents, the LBA Foundation focuses on inspiring hope into tomorrow’s leaders, believers, and achievers, and Empowering Youths of Iowa encourages and aids students who are at risk for dropping out of school.

Lindsey Dozier, vice president of retail for Collins Community Credit Union, said that these partnerships stemmed from wanting to better serve the community with the new location.

After research and forming relationships with community partners over the last eight months, the Credit Union birthed the concept of Hub.

Hub is geared toward middle school students and will structure after-school activities to provide leadership growth, homework assistance, and financial wellness education.

The Hub is free for students who register for the program and sessions will begin this summer.

Alphonce O’Bannon, the executive director of the LBA foundation, said the foundation joined as one of the Hub partners because the program had similar goals as their organization.

“Some of those goals include to provide a safe environment for [kids] to go to in their neighborhood and build up their hopes of what they want to do in their life,” O’Bannon said.

From the birth of this program and working with these different non-profits, Dozier said the idea of bringing community partners into the Credit Union’s space emerged.

“We understand that there are some barriers, and some, some preconceived notions about financial institutions, and we wanted to show the neighborhood that we are showing up together linking arms and can be trusted, because that's our first step is to just show the community that we will be a partner in their financial journey, and in more than just focusing on their financials,” Dozier said.

Dozier said that the rental agreement depends on the community partner and use of space. Neighborhood Finance Corporation and Tanager Place is using the space for free, and the LBA foundation and Empowering Youth of Iowa are still working on a signed agreement, she said.

Dozier hopes that the Hub program and partnership with the non profits will provide a holistic approach when engaging with their consumers.

“We always will be doing transactions, we'll always be doing loans, but what we wanted to do is say, you know, how do you show someone where to start or how to start over, or celebrate the growth that they've had,” Dozier said