A message from Dave Lanphear | President

​I hope you enjoyed the B.C. Day long weekend. One of the things I know you love about your credit union is our dedication to supporting our communities—I hear this from members all the time. I’m proud to share that our employees volunteered nearly 951 days to help those in need last year and The Full Cupboard, our signature cause program, generated $166,880 and 6,648 pounds of food in 2019, equivalent to 500,680 meals for British Columbians.

We do this because lending a hand to those in need is embedded in our culture—our mission is to help our members and communities thrive.

Answering the call of our community partners

At the beginning of the pandemic, we stepped it up even more by expediting funding to our charitable partners through a rapid deployment Community Response Fund. COVID-19 hit our communities’ most vulnerable populations hard—removing access to food banks, mental or developmental services and furthering loss of income. Since we launched this initiative in May, the First West Foundation, the philanthropic partner of First West Credit Union, has granted $264,500 to charitable organizations focused on food security and basic needs for youth, families and seniors throughout the Fraser Valley, Lower Mainland and Kitimat regions.

One of those worthy organizations is REACH Child & Youth Development Society, an organization in Delta dedicated to children with special needs and their families. The funding helped REACH purchase the costly personal protective equipment required to deliver essential in-person services providing these families the support tools they so desperately need to manage every day.

Another is Wilma’s Transition Society, which provides services, support and education to women and their children victimized by family violence. Right at the beginning of the pandemic, the society jumped in to provide food hampers to the increasing number of at-risk families in the community.

Supporting local business: Members helping members

As a financial cooperative, we know one of the best ways to support our communities is to support our local business members, so we’ve stepped up to offer discounts to our members when they support our business members. Get a Meal, Give a Meal, which just wrapped up on July 31, offered members $25 off one order of $50 or more at participating Envision Financial member restaurants. Even better, for each order that was placed, we kicked in $5 for The Full Cupboard. The response from you, our members, was overwhelming. In total you purchased 368 meals, and we reimbursed businesses $9,200 and made $1,840 in donations to The Full Cupboard, providing the equivalent of 5,520 meals to families using food banks throughout the region.

On the heels of that success, we decided to create a new program to help you save money while exploring B.C. this summer. Check out this fantastic list of discounts and special offers that our member lodging providers have created just for you.

It’s so gratifying to see how our business members are responding to the pandemic as well. I find the story of Coast Abbotsford Hotel & Suites incredibly inspiring. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were healthcare workers who weren’t staying at home for fear of bringing the virus back to their families. They needed a safe place to stay and found one thanks to a partnership between Envision Financial and our member, Coast Abbotsford Hotel & Suites. Watch the story here.

Here for you from the start

At Envision Financial, we’ve been here for you since the beginning of this pandemic with most of our branches remaining open. With member and employee health as our utmost concern, we reduced the service of our branches and at the same time expanded our Member Advice Centre, our online banking tools and mobile app to ensure you can do more of your day to day banking without leaving the comfort of your home. I’m pleased to announce that we’re entering the next phase of our re-entry plan and four of our branches are reopening this month: South Point and Sardis on August 17 and Newton and Mission on August 18. As we increase our in-person services, I want to remind you that the pandemic is still very much a concern and you can do most of your day to day banking remotely with our online banking tools, mobile app or by calling our Member Advice Centre.

Stay safe and enjoy the summer with your families (from a distance, of course).  

David Lanphear | President, Envision Financial