Tremont CU Partners on Faith-Based Community Development Branch

BOSTON – Tremont CU announced yesterday it is joining with local faith-based and community development groups to open a branch in the low-income neighborhood of Dudley Square, in Roxbury. A coalition called the Boston Community Development Corp. will market the branch’s services and provide outreach to the neighborhood’s Latino and African-American community, according to Leonard Broderick, president of the $165 million credit union. “I’ve been working on this for a lot of years; developing the trust of the church groups and the community. It’s taken a lot of leg work,” Broderick told The Credit Union Journal yesterday. The new branch will offer a broad variety of services, like financial education, credit counseling, home improvement instruction, technical assistance for small businesses and business education. “If it goes over well, we’re looking at other areas of the city we would like to branch into.” Partners in the Boston coalition include: Faith Partnership, Morning Star Baptist Church, Jubilee Christain Church, Financial Investment Initiative Group, and Dorchester Bay IDC. Tremont CU had served select groups in the city’s hospital district until two years ago when it converted charters to serve all of Suffolk County (Boston). Since then it has added Norfolk and Middlesex counties.