Helping our communities thrive is more than a phrase. It is a commitment embedded into every level of the credit union.
In this episode of Banking On Credit Unions, host Josh Rodriguez is joined by Lori Hudson, Community Engagement Manager, and Jason Peach, President and CEO, for a thoughtful conversation about building a sustainable and authentic culture of community service.
Lori shares how the credit union’s community engagement efforts grew from the ground up, starting with no formal volunteer program and evolving into a comprehensive approach that includes employee volunteer hours, nonprofit partnerships, scholarships, donation initiatives, and an annual all‑staff community volunteer day. Jason reflects on why community engagement matters at the organizational level and how living out credit union values extends far beyond traditional financial services.
Listeners will hear real stories of impact, from volunteering with local nonprofits and veterans organizations to moments that inspired employees to go above and beyond even outside of work. The episode also explores how intentional volunteer programs strengthen workplace culture, connect teams across locations, and create lasting relationships within the communities they serve.
If you are curious about what community‑first banking looks like in action, or how service can transform both an organization and the people within it, this episode offers inspiration, insight, and practical takeaways rooted in the credit union philosophy of people helping people.
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Transcript
Host Josh Rodriguez
Hey y’all, Josh Rodriguez, host of Banking On You. Quick note before we jump into episode nine. You may have missed our big announcement earlier in April, so let me fill you in. Episode nine is the first in our brand new series, Banking On Credit Unions. After the success of 2025, we decided to expand Banking On You into three series: Banking On Credit Unions, Banking On St. Louis, and of course, the original series you have all come to love, Banking On You.
So you know, the format of some of these episodes, including episode nine, leans more toward the traditional podcast interview format rather than the banking on you audio storytelling style you’ve come to love. But not to worry, we will have plenty of audio stories scattered throughout this year as well. For the whole scoop, go to the podcast feed and listen to the entire announcement. Now on to the first episode of our brand new banking on credit union series titled “helping our communities thrive.”
Lori Hudson
My name is Lori Hudson. I am the Community Engagement Manager here at West Community Credit Union.
Host Josh Rodriguez
Lori Hudson has been with West Community Credit Union for more than two decades, and she recently obtained the much-heralded Credit Union Development Education Certification. Lori has also dedicated many years serving on the Leadership Committee of the St. Louis Chapter of Credit Unions. She is also the heart and soul of our community and volunteer efforts here at West Community and Tigers Community Credit Union.
Lori Hudson
I started as a part-time teller while I was still going to school. A friend of mine that I had worked with previously at Marshall’s, a retail store, she was the teller supervisor at our Brentwood location. We only had Brentwood at the time. And my mom worked for one of our SEG groups, our employee groups that West Community had. So she was in the Brentwood branch making a deposit and the teller supervisor saw her and said, you know, aren’t you Lori’s mom?
My mom said, yeah, I am. She said, I worked with her, know, previously at Marshall’s and does she need a job? And at the time I did need a job. I was working for a temp agency and I didn’t like it. I came over and started as a part-time teller and went to full-time after I was finished with school. And then I went into the processing department at that time. And I was only in there a short time.
Host Josh Rodriguez
Multiple different positions, part-time teller, processing, there’s some lending in there. How did you end up at the community engagement?
Lori Hudson
Well, the marketing department at that time was the head of the marketing. I don’t know, she was a manager, I guess, a marketing manager. And then she had a business development representative and they both went out on maternity leave at the same time. And when they came back, the business development person decided that she was going to stay home with her child. At the time I was just finishing up school.
I was going for my business degree, but I had an emphasis in marketing. So I said, hey, you know, I’m kind of got classes. I have a little bit of knowledge in the area. You know, I can come over and help out and be a coordinator or whatever for you. So they created a position for me and I came over to help her out a little bit while she tried to find somebody else to be the business development person. And we did a little bit of community stuff, but not a whole lot. And as I stayed with the department and grew in the department, the community stuff started to grow and I got more and more involved with that side of it.
And so the manager said, do you want to do the business development side or do you want to do the community side then because we’re going to split those jobs up if you’re only part time. And I enjoyed the community side of it the most. So I said, I want to stick with that. So that was when I kind of, guess, went into the community and it was just part time at that time and then grew into a full time.
Host Josh Rodriguez
How has the position changed since you first started to what we’re doing now?
Lori Hudson
Everything has changed. mean, you know, it was basically developed by me, I guess. We did a little bit of community stuff in Brentwood when I first started, but not a whole lot. And now we have all the different branches that we have, so we’re involved in many, many different communities. We didn’t have a volunteer program at that time, so that’s something that we’ve developed over the years. There was no official sponsorship or donation program, and we’ve kind of developed that over the years as well.
There’s always been a scholarship program, but I’ve taken over that and we’ve grown that because we just gave out one many years ago and then that grew to a three that we gave out and then five that we gave out and so you know that’s developed over the years since we’ve added on more branches and more area.
Host Josh Rodriguez
So basically the community and volunteer efforts here at the credit unit started at absolute zero No formal volunteer program. No concentrated effort. No one leading volunteer efforts Yeah, small credit union problems. Oh and no budget.
Tell me about the volunteer program. This is where the employees Jason boys are required to volunteer
Jason Peach
It’s an expectation, it’s part of our values, but that would probably be best way to describe it.
Host Josh Rodriguez
Jason, our president CEO, who has successfully ingrained serving our community into our culture. It’s so much more than just a phrase in our mission, vision, and values statement.
Lori Hudson
Three hours that we ask each employee to volunteer.
Host Josh Rodriguez
How did that kind of evolve? Because it’s actually really easy right now. To volunteer, you’ve got a really great website. They can sign up. Basically, you just have to show up at a location. I’m guessing that probably didn’t start exactly like that.
Lori Hudson
Yeah, that was all tracking by hand that that all started and you know I don’t really I’m trying to remember how it actually started and I don’t really remember. I mean it started so long ago.
Jason Peach
Was it related to the concerts? Weren’t we involved?
I say it’s just kind of with what we were.
We needed people at first to attend those.
Lori Hudson
That and Brentwood days we had the parade and we had a booth there at Brentwood days and just trying to get people to Help out with those events because I couldn’t just do all those events by myself. We needed other people to help work them Brentwood days was a two-day event. There’s several shifts that were involved in that. So again, I couldn’t do all that myself So it was kind of how do we get people to help help out and be ambassadors basically for the credit union?
So it just kind of developed over time, getting the word out and trying to get volunteers to help out. Over the years, I’ve found that, and I don’t even remember how I came across the website that we use now to track all of our volunteer stuff. And they were just a startup organization when we first partnered with them. For instance, it was like $10 a year that they charged us and now it’s like 200 and something dollars plus a year, you know?
They’ve obviously grown, but I started partnering with that site or website to kind of track all of our stuff for us and to have a calendar to be able to put those opportunities out once we decided that we wanted to ask employees to volunteer.
Host Josh Rodriguez
How receptive was the staff to the idea of volunteering through the credit union effort?
Lori Hudson
With anything new, I think you always have a little bit of resistance. mean, there’s some people that absolutely love volunteering and that’s how it was back when we started the program and it still is to this day. You know, they sign up for multiple events throughout the year and then there’s other people that just don’t have the time or it’s just not part of their personal values, I guess. I mean, they’ll do it and they’re fine with it. And actually, once people do do that for the first time, they get
bit by the bug, I guess, too. And they find out, this is really cool and I really enjoy this and these organizations are great and I feel, you know, it’s very rewarding, rewarding, very rewarding to help out in the community. So.
Host Josh Rodriguez
How does your heart plan of this Jason as a CEO? these efforts have come in since you’ve been CEO, was this existing previous to you becoming CEO?
Jason Peach
First of all, Lori’s developed this and it’s grown. know, I think one thing that I think about that helps reinforce and give Lori more support organizationally is that about 12, 15 years ago, we got involved in the Missouri Quality Award process. It’s organizational performance model to try to become a better organization, a better credit union. And one of the areas that
They emphasize is community engagement and how do you live your values. And if you say your values and your vision involve being part of the community, then they want to understand how you do that. What ways do you reinforce that? And then they want to see results. How are you know, how active is it? How do you compare to others? And so by being part of this kind of quality performance focus that we, we really tried to formalize or ask Lori to formalize the program and to measure results and to try to improve them every year. And so I think because it was important for us to be a high performing organization and really fulfill our vision and our values. And it just correlated straight to community engagement. so I think that I believe that gave it added emphasis. I don’t know what it was like in Lori’s shoes, but from my side of the desk, that was what was really motivating us was to be a better organization and live our values and to show it measurably. And so this is, it got more focused and this role became a bigger role and gets more focused because of that.
Host Josh Rodriguez
Do you measure that performance?
Jason Peach
So I mean, I guess Lori, I can answer it. So I’ll answer the question and then Lori will give a better answer if I’m wrong. But basically, we look at volunteer hours. So the amount of hours our staff commits and participates in volunteering. And hopefully over time, not just through our own growth as an organization, but we see those hours grow overall. And we look at our donations, our monetary contributions. So we’ve had different ways, a couple of different ways we’ve measured it over time and Lori keeps track and we hopefully continue to improve it. We put the results out there on our intranet for the staff to see. That’s right. So we want our members to know we’re doing this and giving back. So I think if you don’t measure it, you can’t talk about it with folks and really demonstrate and show that we’re
Lori Hudson
It’s on our website as well.
Jason Peach
I guess putting our money and our time where our mouth is.
Host Josh Rodriguez
It’s easy oftentimes to cut a check and send a check somewhere, but it seems like you’ve intentionally structured this program to be maybe not more, but get your hands dirty, get in, do the work, volunteer. Of course, there’s the donation component that goes to it also, but how would you say or what would you say is the importance level of each one of those? They’re both very important.
Jason Peach
Well, I think it depends on the organization.
Lori Hudson
Volunteering too, gives more lasting, it’s more memorable, it’s a better experience. They remember us more and we definitely remember that experience and what we did and what we learned from those organizations. And it involves everyone in the organization then, whereas if I’m just cutting a check or we’re just cutting a check, it’s me going to do a picture or something and people are going to see it it doesn’t really mean that much to them. But when they’re actually volunteering and getting in it as well, you know, it’s definitely more meaningful to the actual employees partners.
Host Josh Rodriguez
There was a, and I’m not sure if you remember exactly who this was, but there was a story that was out on the internet last year. I think it was after the volunteer day from last year. Somebody had volunteered and they got so inspired. They went back and volunteered to think of that same location again. I don’t know if you recall any details of that. I don’t remember who it was. It seems to me like it was a, it was a, some type of a pet rescue or something like that. And they actually took their children back and volunteered again. I wish I could remember who did that.
Lori Hudson
No, the story I remember is that Nick in Columbia was inspired about one of the organizations they visited last year and they had a need for something and he used his contacts and resources to go find this equipment or…
Lori Hudson
computer or something or something.
Host Josh Rodriguez
So I’m familiar with that. was a projector so they can show movies for the veterans.
Jason Peach
Yes. So that’s what comes to my mind is that was above and beyond what was needed. He got inspired, he saw a need and he solved it. And that wasn’t really the core purpose of why we were there, but he individually was so inspired and wanted to help them.
Lori Hudson
Yeah, and had a had a connection. he
Jason Peach
But I do remember Chelsea or somebody or Mirella somebody went back and took their family, but I can’t remember exactly.
Lori Hudson
I do know Ashley Scroggins came home with a dog from from making a donation to one of the organizations out there. She adopted a dog.
Jason Peach
One of the things Lori also built was our program where people, she built a program where our workforce donates a dollar out of their paychecks and called it denim per dollars. And then quarterly that those funds are accumulated and given as a donation to one of our community partners. And so the staff loves to wear jeans on Fridays.
They can donate a dollar and then it actually really, as we’ve grown the number of employees, those dollars really have become pretty meaningful. And yes, the credit union donates some funds as well, but it’s really powerful that our own staff not only give their time, they actually give their money to these causes as well.
Host Josh Rodriguez
We’ve found participating in volunteer efforts on the job can inspire staff to launch out and volunteer on their own. We actually talked about that back in episode one. When you get an opportunity, jump back and take a listen. It’s well worth the time. How many organizations would you estimate we’ve worked with over the years?
Lori Hudson
Hundreds, I really don’t know. I know on our website we have a list of probably the organizations that we’ve worked with for the past year, year and a half. And we update those on an annual basis. And they’re forever changing. I some of them are constant, you know, like the school districts and that sort of thing around the branches. We’re always supporting them and working with them. But the other organizations, you know, do come and go, I guess, a little bit. But yeah, I…There’s a lot.
Host Josh Rodriguez
Every year on Columbus Day, West’s community and Tigers’ community employees dedicate an entire day to serving and giving back to their communities. It’s a day employees have really grown fond of.
Lori Hudson
I saw other organizations out doing similar things and I always thought because we were doing volunteer opportunities, how cool would that be if we could get everybody? So I talked about it for quite a few years and people just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’ll never happen. You know, it’s too big of a deal, you know, to be able to do this. And then finally, you know, you make enough noise, somebody’s going to listen and you’re going to break through. So finally they said, well, let’s think about this. What would that look like? You know, let’s entertain this idea.
And it just kind of evolved from there. And eventually one day they said, okay, let’s try this. You know, we found a date, a federal holiday that the crediting was closed, that we didn’t have other things going on. And it’s, I guess, not a celebrated one as much. And the kids are not out of school that day. So it was easier for people and the employees to volunteer on that day if they could, because they might not have to find childcare or something, you know, because the kids are still in school.
We found that one, the first credit union day that we did was in 2019. And it was successful, everybody seemed to enjoy it. So we thought, hey, we’ll do it again. And then COVID hit, so we couldn’t do it that year. We brought it back in 2021 with masks and changed it up a little bit as far as meeting afterwards, because in the first one we all came together and had our meeting afterwards, our lunch and, you recap in 2021.
We had to have separate lunches. So whichever groups you volunteered with, you stuck with that group for the lunch. And so it was on a smaller scale. And the feedback was, man, this was great, but it would be really great to get everybody back together again afterwards. So in 2022, we had our conversion, our big core conversion. So we did not do any of our volunteer efforts that year. It looked completely different and we developed a different program that year.
The great employee philanthropy takeover. That’s what it was.
Host Josh Rodriguez
How did that work?
Lori Hudson
We had all the employees recommend different organizations that they wanted to donate to. So we just set aside a lot more money that year. Instead of volunteering hours, we volunteered money or donated money, I guess, to those organizations. And each month we had a different organization that we would pick and go out and do a donation check to.
So we just had to change it up a little bit because it was important to still support community, but we just had do it in a different way because everyone was so busy with the Core and helping out, know, with that, that we couldn’t volunteer like we normally do. So we didn’t have the volunteer day in 2022. We brought it back in 23 and then we had another one, our fourth one here in 24.
Host Josh Rodriguez
How has the dynamic with Tigers Credit Union staff been in Columbia and of course most of the employees being here in the St. Louis area, how have you managed to have both involved in this day?
Lori Hudson
Well, I mean, we still have the volunteer efforts in Columbia as well for those employees. So I manage those opportunities as well. We don’t have as many staff there. We don’t have, so I can’t provide as many opportunities there as we have here at West. But we do still have those efforts running there. So they are volunteering out there throughout the year as well. So, I mean, it’s, of course they’re gonna do exactly what we do. It’s hard because they’re in a different area.
And they’re a smaller group so they’ve always just volunteered at one organization and then through our surveys that we do afterwards one of the suggestions from them was you know it’d be nice to be able to choose you know they want the opportunities like West has to have more places to choose from so that’s why this year we added two different organizations for them and because now there’s three branches so there are a few more employees.
So we have the two organizations that they were able to choose from and volunteer at this year. We’ve always had a couple of our West employees go out and work with them during their volunteer day. I think there was three of you guys that went out this year.
Host Josh Rodriguez
I love the Columbia people. There’s so much fun to be around. It’s so great. So you say we’ve worked with multiple companies over the years. How do you choose? So you chose 10. How do you do that?
Lori Hudson
It’s really hard trying to find people that align with our mission vision values as well. Organizations that we’ve worked with in the past that know us and we know them, you know, comfort level with some of them. Ones that may not necessarily be next to our branch or that close to our branch, but yet they still might help the people in our field of membership. They still might help the people that
You know, come to our branches. For instance, the food bank, I know it’s over in the St. Louis area side. You may not think about them helping a Lake St. Louis member or an O’Fallon member, but they do because they help all the different counties around the area. So they do reach out even into Warren County and Lincoln County and that stuff. So even though you don’t, you may not think that they’re right next to one of our branches, our members could still be using them.
Yeah, it’s hard to select them, but you want to make sure that they’re good organization, that they are really helping and doing what they need to do on their end as well.
Host Josh Rodriguez
Here’s a quick list of nonprofit organizations we’ve helped during our community volunteer days.
Lori Hudson
the women’s shelter, which is down in the St. Louis area. We had, I’m completely drawing a blank right now. my list. here we go. I got my list right here. We had AmeriCorps, the APA, which is a pet place, the Foster and Adaptive Care Coalition. We had Kids Smart, which works with kids in schools. L’ARCH and Missouri Veterans Endeavor. Nurses for Newborns and the Women’s Safe House. Those are the ones in St. Louis. On the Tiger side of the Columbia side, had Coyote Hill and then Welcome Home Veterans.
Host Josh Rodriguez
We did a really great months long effort for our veterans in July. Tell me a little bit about that.
Lori Hudson
our CU Give program. So that developed in July because we have done holiday giving programs in the past around Christmas time and a lot of the organizations get so many donations during that time it just kind of gets watered down. So a few years back we thought let’s make it a different time of year. I don’t know if it’s Thanksgiving or when it is and we came up with the idea of doing it in July and changing it to Christmas in July at that time.
We set up Christmas trees in the lobbies and we had 4th of July decor on the trees and changed it to be a different time of year. And so we’ve kind of kept that idea. It’s evolved over the years. It’s not called Christmas in July anymore. We changed it just so you give this year. But that’s kind why we do it at a different time of the year instead of the holidays or around Christmas time is because they get so many donations at that time.
We wanted to kind of make stand out and make it a little bit more special, I guess, for them. We’ve done Heroes Care in the past and then this year we did VCP, which is Veterans Community Project for Homeless Veterans in St. Louis area. Other ones that we’ve done, we’ve done a book drive in the past. We’ve done school supplies in the past. Those were the school supplies was during August, no, July. I’m sorry, it was in July as well.
Jason Peach
a Warner’s winter warmup.
Lori Hudson
Warner’s warm up. We’ve done that before. Yeah, that’s in October, November time-frame. That’s partnered with an organization called First Things First. Kurt Warner and his wife started that organization and that’s also run through Operation Food Search.
Host Josh Rodriguez
So Jason, know you mentioned earlier that Lori would answer the question better than you, so hold on.
Jason Peach
And you’ve seen that proven.
Host Josh Rodriguez
I’ll you one that only you can answer. How does all this make you feel? These are some really, these are real efforts, you Sometimes companies say we’re giving back to our community, it’s just not there. You have these measurable, very visible things that you’re doing. And how does that make you feel as the CEO?
Jason Peach
I think this is, it fulfills kind of that promise credit unions make and West Community makes, Tiger’s community in Columbia, to serve its members. When we say we serve our members, it goes beyond making a loan or helping somebody save money the traditional ways through the banking services. We can do so much more. And I think that’s what Lori leads, that our ability to reach into the community. I mean, we serve members of our community, we employ members of our community.
This directly impacts our ability to have a better community and that really feels fulfilling. mean, it really is at the center of the heart of the organization and I’m proud of what we do because also it’s grown so much. Lori described kind of where it began with 25 employees in the entire credit union now, 120 employees in the credit union.
One branch to ten branches and being in so many more communities around St. Louis and in Columbia. We even have a fuller reach. We started in Brentwood, but now we can expand throughout the whole metropolitan area in many ways. That is, that’s very rewarding.
Host Josh Rodriguez
Hoping our community’s thrive is embedded into our vision statement and lives within every level of our credit union. Here are some of the comments we’ve received from employees about our volunteer program.
So we were there. We cleaned everything we could for some of the residents. We’re there we’ve painted walls and taken out trash I’ve worked for several different companies that trying
This is volunteering is not a I’m not It’s I’ve been it’s been a while doing it feels nice Just as rewarding as it was.
I’ve been in credit unions and banks for 25 plus years. first company has done something like this. It is for sure. Talk about giving back to your community, know, in a part, you know. We truly give to our community.
We are constantly in the community. We partner with other organizations. But the All Staff Day is really so interesting because you get to get out and co-mingle with different departments a whole lot. You really get to know your coworkers outside of a whole different atmosphere. You’re volunteering with somebody that you may not really know that well and it just really bonds you. A lot of people are starting to look for more now in their work, in a career we partner with the school. If for a company, you want to work for something that’s bigger than yourself.
Host Josh Rodriguez
and that’s that’s part of the West Community Tigers community culture. It’s what we are.
We call it a commitment to our community, but also we’re committing ourselves to something. And I just, I love that messaging.
Host Josh Rodriguez
people helping people, right? The Credit Union philosophy. It’s just, it’s really cool to see a company that has created a culture of giving. For more information about starting a volunteer program at your credit union, check out our website, westcommunitycu.org and head over to our resources and then volunteer pages. Or if you prefer, reach out directly to Lori Hudson at [email protected].
Thank you so much for listening to Banking on Credit Unions. This is Josh Rodriguez. Remember, here at West Community and Tigers Community Credit Union, we’re always banking on you. I’ll see you next time.
