Community Impact Report 2025

As part of our commitment to our members and community, the PeakCU Foundation is proud to award $97,500 in college scholarships to member-students who demonstrate dedication to creating a positive impact in their community. Every year, there are 48 scholarships available – forty-four $2,000 scholarships and four specialty legacy scholarships.

The Northwest Community Larry Levine Annual Scholarship awards $3,500 to a Douglas County Resident attending Umpqua Community College to complete their education and developing career opportunities, even in the face of challenge. This scholarship is named for writer and educator Assistant Professor Larry Levine, who was killed along with eight Umpqua Community College students in 2015.

This year's recipient, Lindsay Roper, shared that attending UCC is an opportunity to invest in the future of the community that has nurtured her growth. She adds, "I'm incredibly grateful for this scholarship and what it has meant for my education this year. It has reduced the financial strain of being a single parent while attending school full-time and has helped me stay focused and committed to completing my degree. Because of this support, I'm able to invest more time and energy into my classes and build a better future for my daughter."

Aside from financial relief, receiving a scholarship can also provide a sense of community and reinforcement that others recognize your potential. Uplifting others embodies the spirit of one of our founders, Dewey I. Noblitt, who taught at Olympia High School and started our credit union in Room 121 to unite and protect teachers from loan sharks. Every year, The Dewey Noblitt Memorial Scholarship is awarded to a graduating senior from William Winlock Miller High School (Olympia High School).

Josiah York, the winner of our Dewey Noblitt Memorial Scholarship, explains that "getting this scholarship means a lot to me because it shows that people in my community believe in me and want to see me succeed… knowing I have that support pushes me to work harder and make the most of every opportunity."

Local scholarships for local students create a lasting impact across the areas we serve, making them a meaningful way to partner with our members and help them reach their future goals.

In the United States, many high school graduates leave school without a basic understanding of money and economics – as a trusted financial institution, we remain committed to providing financial education and sharing our knowledge to help empower the next generation of fiscally aware young adults. In 2025, we delivered 97 presentations to approximately 2,425 students in 29 different classrooms.

Amanda Stevens, our PeakCU Foundation Director, often teaches these financial literacy classes in our local schools. Her curriculum is designed to promote financial fitness, covering topics that include banking basics, loans, budgeting, fraud awareness, investing, and risk management.

Career and Technical Education Teacher, Baron Coleman, at Lakes High School in Lakewood has seen the positive influence these lessons can have on students.

He says, "For the past six years, Amanda has brought her expert banking knowledge into our learning space, transforming the way our students understand personal finance. Her ability to make banking and financial literacy engaging, interactive, and relevant has been nothing short of remarkable. She delivers curriculum with clarity and enthusiasm, making complex topics accessible and enjoyable for our high school students – exactly what they need in today's world."

While our proactive approach to financial literacy is meant to be helpful through our K-12 outreach programs, our mission is to help improve the financial well-being of all our members and the greater community. We provide ongoing opportunities to share financial literacy education for adults in a variety of ways.

In 2025, we hosted 64 financial education presentations for 1,044 attendees. In these presentations, we shared general information about banking and answered community questions for increased comprehension.
We also continued our partnership with MoneyEDU, a self-directed online financial wellness education program. Within this platform, our members can use interactive tools to create budgets, track spending, and calculate things such as how much interest they will pay when making minimum payments on credit cards. We had 771 new users participate in the program. With 1,872 course enrollments and 1,918 active sessions, we are proud to support a total of 676 hours of learning time for our members.

We believe it's never too early or too late to learn more about finances, which is why offering financial education programs that span generations continues to be extremely meaningful to our credit union.

Something that makes Peak truly unique is our employees and their passion for serving our members and our communities.

A perfect example of our team's desire to aid others is our employee-led food drive in the Fall of 2025. Peak employees noticed a need in our communities: local families were experiencing food insecurity and they needed help. Our teams took swift action to coordinate and lead a company-wide food drive, asking the credit union to partner and support their efforts. In addition to the credit union's support, the PeakCU Foundation also stepped up to help make a difference.

Employees and members donated non-perishable food items at Peak branches, with branch managers coordinating deliveries to local food banks for distribution to community members in need. Over the course of six weeks, more than 17,600 food items were collected. We also collected monetary donations, which the PeakCU Foundation matched, to contribute $2,428.44 to Thurston County Food Bank, Food for Lane County, Emergency Food Network, and the Oregon Food Bank Network.

The collective efforts of our employees, credit union, and Foundation helped address a critical need in our communities and fed more than 20,000 people during the holiday season.

Improving our communities isn't just a reactionary effort – it's also about proactively planning and supporting a space for community members to gather, collaborate, and align priorities to ensure we're collectively building a better future. In addition to working directly with members, schools, non-profits, and food banks, Peak also supports business events that unite stakeholders in the community.

Brittany Quick-Warner, the President & CEO of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, explains that annual sponsorship and partnership of these events not only deepen relationships but also develops the next generation of civic leaders who will bring transformative change to their local communities.

She elaborates, "What makes Peak's partnership meaningful is that it is layered and sustained – Peak doesn't simply invest in programs – they invest in outcomes, in leadership, and in the long-term vitality of our region."

Across Oregon and Washington, we're proud to support community initiatives, local Chambers, and business events that will positively influence the communities we're a part of..