Members Approve Landmark ScholarshipProgram

RALEIGH, N.C. - (12/02/04) -- More than 99% of members of StateEmployees CU approved a massive educational endowment program thatwill allow the credit union to award four-year college scholarshipsat every one of the state's 341 public high schools and two charterschools. The 'People Helping People' High School Scholarships, eachat $10,000, will be awarded for study at one of the 16 campuses ofthe University of North Carolina. The $3.5 million annualcommitment, along with a $580,000 to provide 116 two-yearscholarships at the state's 58 community colleges, will be fundedthrough the credit union's newly formed SECU Foundation. The creditunion's members overwhelmingly agreed to let SECU route the $1 amonth they pay for checking to fund the new foundation. Thescholarships will be awarded for the first time to studentsentering a UNC institution in the fall of 2005. Preference will begiven to public sector employees and their families who work instate and local government agencies served by the creditunion.