Last Updated on June 27, 2023, 1:24 PM | Published: June 26, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY — The second Eastside location for True Sky Credit Union opened to the public at NE 23rd and Missouri Saturday with festive games and giveaways for adults and kids.
Their first Eastside branch opened in a new facility on NE 50th and Martin Luther King in 2021.
With the ribbon cutting the day before, it was a festive weekend not just for True Sky members but for their partners, the members of New Bethel Baptist Church.
And, if anything showed the need in the local community for a True Sky Credit Union location there, it was the number of people who came up and used the ATM over the ten days of the tech shakedown period before the official opening for business.
“We really weren’t even open,” True Sky CEO Sean Cahil told us after the ribbon cutting Friday. “So, we happened to turn on some of our outside technology. The branch opens today. But almost 500 People came in to use this in the last 10 days many of which just walked up.”
“So you know, that’s what we want. We want a walk-up, drive-up facility that’s for the community. And we were blown away,” said Cahill.
All virtual service
The new virtual services by actual employees interacting with members were demonstrated for the first time Thursday at the VIP event.
True Sky leaders took members on a tour of the indoor ATM where a live employee can assist.
As well, two separate offices where members can be allowed to enter to conduct any kind of business they need to with an employee were demonstrated.
Each employee who remotely interacts with members is doing so from Oklahoma City, not some other place.
Collaboration
While any credit union is a collaborative effort where each depositor is a voting member, this particular branch is even more of a collaboration with long-term members of the community.
New Bethel Baptist Church and True Sky came up with an agreement where the credit union would build their branch on the church’s vacant lot with frontage on NE 23rd and include a large community meeting room that the church would be able to use any time for community or church needs.
According to Cahill and New Bethel Pastor James Greenwood, the agreement was for the church to lease the land to True Sky for one dollar for 75 years. In turn, True Sky will lease the community room to the church for one dollar for 75 years.
Financial literacy outpost
The physical presence of the branch on NE 23rd makes the credit union an outpost of financial security sitting next door to a short-term loan company on one side and a pawn shop on the other.
Pastor Greenwood talked with Free Press about the deeper need beyond just having a new state-of-the-art room to use for church meetings.
He pointed to the payday loan business right next door and said, “If you just look across the street, we know what that is.”
He told me that it’s going to be great to have the room for them to use, but there is more to it than just that. It provides a way to increase financial literacy in the community and to provide an alternative to short-term loan companies.
“The relationship with true sky gives us all these opportunities in terms of finance,” said Greenwood. “Because if we want to teach on finance, what a great partnership. I can pick up the phone call [True Sky CEO Sean Cahill] and say, hey, can I get somebody over here.”
‘Looking for needs’
Marc Jones is the CEO of the nonprofit that operates The Market at Eastpoint, a grocery just a couple of blocks away that is intended to serve the community first.
I asked him what having True Sky just down the street means to them.
“I think that True Sky’s approach to the community is very much similar to our approach in terms of looking for needs and trying to meet them,” said Jones.
“Already, even before they’ve opened, they were over in our store, giving away gift cards for food because there’s a need for food access within our community,” Jones said. “We’re already talking to them about how we cooperate on opening a food pantry in their location.”
Church ‘a foundation’
This is a community that the church has served for over 60 years. I mean, being a foundation in this community,” said Greg Hill, Vice Chair of True Sky. “And so by this partnership, this membership [has] really been underserved by this type of financial services.”
“This is huge,” Hill said. “Now they have a branch of a credit union they can come to, they can basically walk to. It is basically next door to them. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
This is not the first collaboration with a church for the credit union but it’s certainly the most interactive and organic.
In 2021, Northeast Church of Christ chose to sell property on the southwest corner of NE 50th and Martin Luther King to True Sky for many of the same reasons that New Bethel chose them as partners, said Hill.
“They said, [they] wanted somebody that was going to be in the community for many, many years, and was going to really provide a lot of needed services,” Hill said.
He said about that sale, “That has really changed the lives of this community.”
Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.
