Community Impact: People Helping People

To help students gain valuable hands-on experience, relevant job skills, and learn financial responsibility, SAFE developed partnerships with Mesa Verde, Rio Linda, and Cordova high schools to host and operate SAFE branches. Students participate in an immersive two-week internship at SAFE where they learn how to staff the branches and help their peers open and maintain checking and savings accounts. Then some students continue on and work in the high school branch throughout the school year.

Emilio first learned about financial wellness in the SAFE branch at Rio Linda High School. Through hands-on experience, Emilio discovered he liked banking, and decided to pursue it after graduation. Emilio is currently a Community Relations coordinator in SAFE’s Workplace Financial Wellness program providing the region’s largest employers with financial wellness services. SAFE has hired over 20 other high school branch employees through this program.

SAFE Credit Union provided a $20,000 grant to Sutter Medical Center Foundation to support the Pediatric Emergency Room and Child Life Program at Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento. The funds were used for equipment to benefit children and their families, as well as for environmental enhancements in the Pediatric Emergency Room to provide a cheerful environment and visual consistency with the pediatric unit in the Anderson Lucchetti Women’s & Children’s Center. Child Life Specialists work directly with patients and their families to create a warm, friendly environment for young patients and support their coping with their medical care.

Patients are distraught, little, scared, and don’t know what’s happening to them. This grant will go in part to purchase bright, cheerful decorations because it’s important for children to focus on other things since the hospital can be a scary environment. The funds will also be used for equipment like iPads, iPods, and videos to help entertain children and provide distractions for medical procedures that may be painful or scary. We also provide toys they use during their stay that they can take home with them as a memento of their treatment and that the hospital is not such a scary place to go.

Sheri Burns
Emergency Department Nursing Director at
Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento

SAFE Credit Union regularly supports Stand Down Associations in our region to assist them in helping homeless and other veterans receive services, medical assistance, and connect with government agencies and businesses to help get their lives back on track.

Our promise has been to help and support our homeless veteran population get back on their feet. Our motto is that no brother or sister is left behind, that promise doesn’t have a qualifying statement — it must and will be kept. We thank you for your support and are proud to call you our partner.

Randy Smith
Sacramento Stand Down Association President

You can make a difference, even if you’re social distancing at home. To honor the National Day of Service, SAFE staff held their first ever SAFE Virtual Volunteering Event. SAFE employees created welcome-home kits for residents of Sacramento Self-Help Housing’s Permanent Supportive Housing Program. The program combines affordable housing assistance with voluntary support services designed to build independent living and tenancy skills and connect people with community-based health care, treatment, and employment services.

We’re proud to say Beverly is thriving. Since moving into our program last winter, she's accomplished a lot. Here's a message from her case manager: ‘When Beverly moved in, we were able to immediately set her up with a primary doctor, med delivery service, and transportation to her appointments. She really has been an exemplary resident. Beverly has one son and nine grandchildren and normally leaves our program on the weekend to visit family. Beverly always talks about how grateful she is for the beautiful house she now lives in. The above picture is Beverly saying thanks to SAFE Credit Union for the gift bag filled with sanitation and hygiene items.

Derek Corea
Sacramento Self-Help Housing