Hopefully, you you're aware of Every Woman's Place in Muskegon. We have long partnered with them in the fight against domestic abuse and to help raise awareness about what they do past the immediate crisis shelter located on Laketon in Muskegon. What's really great is when one of our sponsoring partners sees a need and jumps in too to help, and that's what happened with Community Choice Credit Union.
Community Choice Credit Union has a very simple approach. They believe in engaging in the communities they serve and finding ways to help through volunteerism or financial assistance because quite honestly, helping a community thrive is just what they do. Being able to be a part of the fiber of a community with assistance in things like a back to school backpack giveaway, or maybe picking up the tab for a few restaurants during the height of the pandemic to support the diners as well as the restaurant owners, or maybe it's simply celebrating International Credit Union Day with food trucks parked outside their member centers, they dig in and they pitch in to be a part of the good.
Every Woman's Place offers so much more than immediate respite. Part of the goal of the organization is to help the victims of abuse heal as a whole. Part of that means having the skills needed to return back to normal life and be able to be free of the abuser. Too often, the abuse goes far past physical and emotional. When victimization occurs, just about everything is taken over and that includes financial stuff. Coming out of a bad situation with no ability to budget, plan, manage a checkbook or work to save is one of the many pitfalls that return victims to their abusers. With times being as difficult as they are, even organizations like EWP find areas that they struggle in and their financial literacy program was one of those areas. Hearing the need, they quickly provided some funding to help those in need of knowing how to better manage money and budgets, and they got in to present a check quicker than we could get there to be a part of it. So, we circled back.
Elisa Hopper is a pretty familiar face with Every Woman's Place and the Muskegon Channel. Monica Lee is with Community Choice Credit Union and we sat down in the dining hall at EWP to talk about the needs and the hand, take a listen.
We're proud to work with sponsors who's community stewardship goes so far above and beyond throwing up a sign and saying "We're Open". We love opportunities to share who's doing what for the greater good of those who are vulnerable or those who just need a quick hand. We have been committed to the work of Every Woman's Place and to think that maybe some of that commitment led to Community Choice Credit Union jumping in to help too, well, that's why we work. We're thankful to the dedicated staff of EWP in changing the lives of those they serve and we're thankful too, to Community Choice Credit Union for supporting such great work.