Turkey, Toys, and Tiki Torches: Vantage Holiday Outreach

It might surprise you, but your credit union is secretly staffed with Santa’s elves! 

For over 25 years, Vantage Credit Union has partnered with local organizations to help bring a little holiday cheer to our local communities. This year we coordinated donations to local food pantries and outreach centers for Thanksgiving and worked with Cardinals Care to provide local families in need with resources and gifts. 

Turkey Filling Stomachs (and Hearts!)

This year alone, because of the generosity of our members and staff, Vantage provided 13 complete Thanksgiving dinners and a number of care packages and supplies for our community. Debbie Meyer—the coordinator of our holiday giving initiatives—points out that this type of outreach is essential for “a family that might not have the means to do a big dinner either due to finances or a tragic event in their life.”

We genuinely value our communities, so we purposely targeted outreach to those communities around our branches. Here are some of the local organizations to whom we donated this Thanksgiving:

• Ozark Food Pantry
• Lessie Bates Neighborhood House
• Fish Center’s Food Pantry
• Dardenne Presbyterian Church
• St. Louis Public School District
• St. Johns Lutheran Community Outreach
• The Stafford Foundation
• Arnold Food Pantry
• Kennerly Elementary
• Team Food Pantry

The sheer reach of these donations reflects the generosity of our staff and members, but it also reveals our credit union’s commitment to do more to “strengthen our community.”

The Warm Christmas Glow… of Tiki Torches?

For well over 20 years, Vantage has partnered with Cardinals Care to help support families in need in the greater St. Louis Metro Area. This year, our staff raised over $2,700 through a number of fundraisers. With that and additional money donated from our members, Vantage purchased 336 gifts to distribute at the annual Cardinals Care Holiday Party.

We had a large group of employees volunteer their time wrapping those gifts and over 60 hand-knit scarfs and headbands donated by a generous member who provided a little extra personal care to our support. 

We even had staff volunteer to be “Santa’s helpers” at the party by volunteering to distribute the gifts personally to the children. As Debbie Meyer reminds us, “Every child should get to be a child at Christmas and enjoy the wonder and happiness—and sometimes parents need that helping hand for their children. I’m proud that we were able to bring so much joy.

And, by a wonderful happenstance, the theme for this year’s Cardinals Care party was a “Hawaiian Christmas”. One of our staff members had a large number of Tiki decorations from a school function, and she generously donated them to the event. 

All in all, over half of the staff at Vantage Credit Union had some hand in supporting the outreach—which says something about how seriously our employees live out the credit union philosophy of “people helping people” in their local community.

And we’re not finished… We’re starting 2020 with a food and donation drive to help replenish the St. Louis Area Foodbank. Bring in your canned and dry goods to your local Vantage branch and help us start off the year by doing more for the St. Louis area!

Thank you to all of our wonderful staff and members for so generously giving their time, talent, and treasure this holiday season to support our local community!