Altamaha Federal Credit Union is officially Wayne County’s favorite credit union.
The readership of the Press-Sentinel — a local paper covering the Georgia county — voted Altamaha Federal Credit Union as Wayne County’s Favorite Credit Union during the newspaper’s 2019 annual Readership Contest. Cheryl Spires, president and CEO of the Altamaha FCU, said the win happened completely organically.
“We won this honor this year without a campaign,” Spires said. “Nobody went out in the community and asked members to vote for us. I didn’t even so much as ask staff to vote on the credit union’s behalf. So, it was really a pleasant surprise.”
Altamaha FCU serves both Wayne and Long counties — and takes community involvement in those areas seriously. Spires said the credit union prides itself on working closely to coordinate events with the local domestic abuse shelter. Around back-to-school time, staff hosted a school supply drive for needy children in both counties. At Christmas, that same pattern repeated with a toy drive. The credit union worked to help government employees hurt by the government shutdown early last year and collected supplies for those in South Georgia hit hardest by a rough hurricane season.
Besides all that, the credit union also maintains a presence in local schools and hosts a Children’s Savings program championed by the cuddly mascot, Rocky Raccoon. Spires said winning Wayne County’s Favorite Credit Union has motivated staff members, showing them how much the community appreciates all their effort.
“We’ve all worked hard over the last couple of years to make Altamaha FCU a credit union that we can be proud of and – most importantly – that our members can be proud of,” she said. “We’ve overcome a lot of obstacles and we’re now in a place that our talented staff is seeing the vision and sharing in the passion. We really do want to help our members. This award showed us all that when we work together and are all here for that same reason, it really does work. Our community notices.”
Altamaha FCU will keep its focus on community involvement in 2020. In fact, Spires said the credit union will be looking at ways to make that involvement more impactful while also developing new products to better serve members. All that is already underway — but Spires and staff are still taking some time to bask in their recent win.
“I’m just really extremely proud of our staff,” Spires said. “And, of course, we’re all honored to serve our membership. We love our membership and communities.”
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