Credit Union Awards Over $1M in Grants

The City of Bridgetown Co-operative Credit Union Ltd’s Children Are Really Enthusiastic Savers (CARES) initiative has once again seen great success in 2022, with some $1.5 million in grants being given out so far since its start in 2004.

This revelation comes from the credit union’s president, Dr Lynette Holder, as she spoke during the 2022 CARES AWARDS ceremony held at Sandals Royal on Saturday, April 10th. Dr Holder said that though the last two years of COVID-19 have been a testing period for all, the credit union continued to see favourable growth, with the COB Cares Maxine McClean Scholarship and Awards programme continuing to be a major benefit to those young persons enrolled in CARES. The program caters to children from birth to age 25.

“In 2005 we had just about 6, 000 CARES accounts at the credit union, and because of really working during that period with this project, I can report that at the last count on the 7th of April [2022] we had 10, 543 savers for this program.

“As a result of launching this CARES programme and investing in our young people, we have been able to award and recognize 1, 309 young persons since we started providing scholarships and grants to our youth members. That equates to $1.5 million that we have given in grants for that period of time… so we have done relatively well in my view in investing in you from the primary; those going into secondary school; those who will go out from secondary school into the tertiary institutions; we were there walking hand in hand,” she said.

Dr Holder further added that the time was ripe for the initiative to expand further, and offer more internship opportunities to its members in order to help prepare them for the modern world of work.

“Each year, we have just about 3, 500 going from primary to secondary level, so that means there is a captive market. So instead of growing by just about 292 persons per year, we have a market there that we can really expand our youth programme.

“Not only that, we have an internship initiative we started and I believe that we can further grow. We can work with our partners to provide internships for our young people and help them to own their skills and to develop some experience in the world of work. I am satisfied that an investment in our youth is going to be a significant return for us as an organization in the future.”