And three apples and a plum!

There’s a bit more foliage in our branch locations right now, all part of our Neighborhood Harvest campaign for the month of September.

To promote our “green” initiatives, we’ve brought a little bit of nature in to our branches: five immature fruit trees. Each branch is “fostering” a tree for the month of September, then the trees will go to their permanent homes at the Dakota p-patch and orchard in Rainier Valley. The gardeners at the p-patch will tend the trees and share the fruit with the local community.

Our green initiatives are all about taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint and to provide our members with the opportunity to do the same. eStatements, digital Gear Up newsletter, online banking and bill pay all reduce paper and water usage, lower the amount of fuel we require to do business, and lessen the amount of waste we produce.

Fortunately, what’s good for the planet is also good for our members and good for business.

• eStatements, online banking and bill pay are all more secure than their paper-dependent counterparts. One of the main causes of identity theft is having personal information filched from your mailbox or your trash.
• Our green initiatives save on postage–yours and ours! When you pay your bills automatically, no stamps are required. And the credit union can save itself (and its members) a great deal of money now spent on postage by sending out more statements electronically.
• Electronic banking saves on storage and waste. Your electronic statements are archived for a year–no filing cabinets or storage closets required! And if you don’t get paper, you don’t have paper to store or dispose of.

The official planting of our trees in their permanent homes is tentatively scheduled for October 3. Please join us to celebrate! As we get closer to planting day, more details will be available here, at our branches or on our website.

Special thanks to Michael R. Clapp of nwnature.net, for permission to use his beautiful photographs of NW birds in our campaign!

Filed under: GHCU Events, GHCU Promotions by Shannon