We are thrilled to have Virginia Credit Union supporting the 2025 Day of Caring as a Gold Sponsor! Cherry Dale, Senior Vice President of Financial Education at Virginia Credit Union, is also on this year’s Host Committee, which is an assembly of local leaders who have helped support the planning and promotion of Day of Caring this year.
We took a few moments to chat with Cherry recently about her team’s experience with Day of Caring and how it lead to further connections and opportunities for them to give back and support their community. Her team volunteered at Agnor Elementary School, which helped them learn about the needs of parents and students and helped enlighten school staff about what their company can do. This lead to Virginia Credit Union donating children’s books focused on financial literacy to the school’s families in addition to hosting financial literacy courses in person at Agnor!
Virginia Credit Union’s experience is the perfect example of how Day of Caring can help connect community members and organizations and lead to further philanthropic support. For organizations hosting Day of Caring volunteers, the event is a free opportunity to present your mission and work to up to thousands of philanthropically-minded local individuals. This awareness-building can inspire further volunteer support, community programs like Agnor’s, or even monetary and/or material donations. Why not host volunteers, then see where it leads?!
Read on to see more about the Virginia Credit Union team’s experience:
What was the Virginia Credit Union team’s Day of Caring volunteer experience like?
Cherry Dale: We have branches in the Charlottesville area and our mission is to be our members’ trusted provider of financial services leading them to greater success. And I think the key word within that mission is “trusted.” And so we know that United Way of Greater Charlottesville is such a trusted organization within the community and we saw all that you were doing and we really wanted to be a part of the experience and the giveback and to help the community.
Virginia Credit Union partnered with Agnor Elementary School in Charlottesville. We did multiple projects on-site at the school. We had 27 volunteers that were employees at Virginia Credit Union, not just from the Charlottesville area but also from the Richmond area. And we all came together to support the school. We worked outside. They had a sensory garden we worked in. We worked inside building literacy kits, and just did random projects that the school needed at that point.
How did your team’s involvement turn into a relationship that extended beyond Day of Caring?
Cherry Dale: So part of our goal is to help the community learn how to manage their money, and we partner with multiple organizations to teach children and adults about this. And at Agnor, as we were there working with the administration, we were able to talk about what we were doing with schools in the area. And we told them about our financial literacy lessons and what we had to offer, and they were really excited and interested in furthering that conversation and relationship with us.
So after the Day of Caring happened, we met with Agnor Elementary School staff and we also worked with the PTO President to figure out what was the best way for Virginia Credit Union to provide some financial literacy curriculum. We decided to focus in on a day where we provided over 700 financial literacy books all about the credit union. It was called “Berenstain Bears Visit the Credit Union.” And we gave each student a book and then our Senior Financial Education Specialist Tori Filas went and read the book to several classes. So all the students got to hear about what a credit union is, the importance of saving, and keeping their money safe as well.
We enjoyed the partnership so much and being able to connect with, not just the staff and then students, but then also parents as well. And we were able to bridge between the school and Virginia Credit Union and the home by sending a book home with the students.
How has Day of Caring impacted your team’s feeling of connection to our community in the Greater Charlottesville area?
Cherry Dale: One of the most valuable components of working at Virginia Credit Union is our ability to give back as employees to the community in which we serve. This was really our big dip into the water into the Charlottesville area even though we’ve had branches here. And so working with United Way of Greater Charlottesville really provided an automatic connection to the school and the community that we did not have before. Working through United Way of Greater Charlottesville to be introduced to the school and then showing them all that Virginia Credit Union is about was an excellent way to expand our mission, connect with the community, and connect with students and their parents as well.
And then our employees also got to see and connect with the students, with the teachers and really get an overview of the importance of that giveback component to the area in which we are serving our members and serving the area at large.
There is still time to participate in Day of Caring as a local nonprofit, school, or faith-based organization! If you have a project or tasks volunteers can help complete, we encourage you to submit your project or reach out to Markiana Smith (msmith@unitedwaycville.org) with questions.