Five years ago Warwick Municipal Employees’ Credit Union was looking for ways to get more involved with the community. Today, it is winning awards for its services. For the third straight year, the credit union has won first place in its asset category in the Dora Maxwell Social Responsibility Award. Winners were chosen at the state level by the Rhode Island Credit Union League. State winners are then submitted to the Credit Union National Association, where they are considered for national recognition. The Coventry Credit Union has won a national Dora Maxwell award in the past.
Dora Maxwell was a credit union pioneer who fought for improving the lot of America’s poor and needy. The awards are given on the basis of the credit union’s commitment to community service programs that have a demonstrable effect.
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David P. Dupere, president and chief executive officer of Warwick Municipal Credit Union, said his company has partnered with the Warwick Shelter to provide Thanksgiving food baskets, Christmas presents, Easter baskets, and back to school clothes to children who are guests of the shelter.
Every year after Thanksgiving, for example, the credit union puts up a “giving tree” in which there are tags that list presents that children at the shelters have said they want for Christmas. Members of the credit union take the labels off the tree, buy the gifts, and bring them back. At the end, Santa Claus brings the gifts to the shelter. More than $3,000 worth of gifts were donated last year, Dupere said.
The credit union has a party each year in which staff members wrap the gifts that come in, he said. The credit union has a staff of seven but has nearly 3,000 members and $15 million in assets. About 10 percent of the credit union’s members contribute to the giving tree program, Dupere said.
Donna Bevilacqua, publications and conventions coordinator for the Rhode Island Credit Union League, said the Dora Maxwell Award is given to credit unions on the basis of what programs they have implemented, the measurable results that have been produced, and how the credit union’s programs promoted the values of credit unions in general, such as self help, voluntarism, and economic empowerment.
