(May 28, 2009 – New York, NY) On May 1, 2009, Neighborhood Trust Federal Credit Union, a community development credit union (CDCU) operating in New York City’s predominatly Latino Washington Heights neighborhood, was featured on the nationally-televised PBS show, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. 

The 10 minute segment included interviews with the credit union’s founder, Mark Levine and its Executive Director, Justine Zinkin.  In 1995, Mr. Levine founded Credit Where Credit is Due (CWCID) specifically to bring a community development credit union to the financially marginalized community of Washington Heights. In 1997, Neighborhood Trust opened its doors at the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal.  Shortly thereafter, CWCID launched a complementary financial education and counseling program targeted at the neighborhood’s primarily low-income population.  Demand for these services was overwhelming from the beginning…

Since that time the CDCU has grown to nearly $7 million in assets and serves over 5,500 low- and moderate-income members.

Credit Where Credit is Due Director, Justine Zinkin on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

“Neighborhood Trust has always prided itself on the central role that financial education and counseling plays in our work every day.  From providing microenterprise technical assistance  in the credit union to helping unbanked community residents overcome financial crises – we witness the real impact that our credit union’s financial products and financial education has on the community.  We are honored that the Lehrer News Hour chose to profile what we view as a model that has immense untapped potential, especially in these difficult economic times.

“The services that CDCUs provide are crucial to helping people in low-income communities thrive, especially in these difficult economic times” explained Federation President/CEO Cliff Rosenthal, “Unfortunately, most CDCUs lack the resources to conduct professional marketing campaigns to attract new members -- some don’t even have marketing budgets -- so to have one of our CDCUs featured so prominently in a nationally syndicated news show brings significant recognition for the great work of Neighborhood Trust, but also for the entire credit union movement.”

Video of the News Hour segment featuring Neighborhood Trust FCU is available online at: http://www.pbs.org/video/video/1111171988. 

(After the opening sponsor acknowledgement, select Chapter 5: Credit Crunch.)

© 2009 National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions.