By Ron Jooss
Remember that feeling when you were a kid of waking up on the day day you had a school field trip? Field Trip!!!! It was a school day, but no classes, and a lot less sitting still. It was just a lot easier to get away with having fun.
My son, Reese, just finished pre-school at this wonderful place in Madison. (He's currently making the not-so-easy transition to kindergarten.) One of the things that made Woods Hollow so wonderful was the number of field trips they took the kids on. This summer they took the kids on a field trip literally every week. Now some of these field trips were as easy as walking across the street to the research laboratory that sponsors the school, but others were as extensive as full-day trips to Wisconsin Dells. My wife, Carrie, and I were always impressed by how much Reese and all the other kids learned on these trips, whether his class was visiting a farm (They did that one twice, in October and June. This is Wisconsin, after all. I froze my butt off both times, even during the one in June.) or going to Morey Field, the little airport in Middleton, Wis. While we were pleased that Reese learned his ABCs and how to write at Woods Hollow, we were just as grateful about how these field trips helped him figure out the way the rest of the world works.
Well, your credit union can can share in that hands-on learning experience. Check out this YouTube video cut from DuPont Community Credit Union's Financial Education DVD. Look how engaged these kids are! They're learning. Your credit union, every credit union, has the opportunity to literally bring kids into their premises, show them how money works and what happens inside the credit union. (Just don't show them the break room refrigerator.) Believe me, the impression you make on the kids will stay with them. Just think back to the school field trips you took when you were a kid. You can remember every one of them.
You know that image problem credit unions have, the one where consumers don't really know what a credit union is, or if they can qualify for membership? I bet those kids in DuPont Community Credit Union's service area will never think twice about opening an account there.
Ron Jooss, a CUES editor, was on a credit union field trip just last week.
Read a previous post by Ron.
