Community First,
since 1959
, has been Doing Good!
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Community First Sponsored Events
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Community First Hires Good Samaritan Fired from Huge National Bank
In early February, Community First learned of the firing of a bank employee who demonstrated a personal act of kindness and compassion to a customer in need.. By contrast, Community First had just given its “Employee of the Quarter” award for a similar act of kindness and compassion.
Community First reached out to the former bank employee to see if there could be a fit with the credit union. There was.
Meet our new Training Specialist, Emily James, as reported by the
Press Democrat
on the front page of its Feb. 28 edition.
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Arlene Colombini Scholarship NOW available!
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Community First’s scholarship program is part of a large effort to aid and support education in Mendocino and Lake counties. The
Arlene Colombini Scholarship
is now available to graduating high school seniors and community college students.
CFCU will award four $1,000 scholarships.
Students must have a 3.0 minimum GPA and be enrolled in a college or university with 12 units or more. Students are chosen based on a criterion, along with a personal statement that describes their need for this scholarship and their goals in life.
The scholarship is named for Arlene Colombini in recognition of her 60-plus years of service to CFCU and her community. Arlene is Community First’s longest-serving volunteer and Board Member.
Elsewhere, Community First supports education in Sonoma, Marin, and Napa counties through our “Teacher of the Year and Runner-Up” awards, as well as the “Teacher of the Month” award in Sonoma County.
Scholarship deadline is April 10, 2020.
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Giving Back. To LOCAL Future Farmers.
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Community First has always focused on helping students, after all we were founded by LOCAL teachers. Education is in our DNA.
To help instill the good habit of saving money in kids, we offer an astounding 7.07% (APY) YouthSaver account to those under 18 years of age –– when coupled with an adult’s checking account. The rate is 1.01% as a stand-alone, which is still 10 times higher than what the big banks pay!
Community First is also the only financial institution in the U.S. to offer a zero-percent loan up to $2,500 (with zero fees) for local agriculture students. The loan is typically used to buy, feed, shelter, care for, and then sell a market animal at one of our local fairs in Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Mendocino and Marin counties.
The CFCU’er who personally administers the
AG Loan Program
is former 4-H and FFA student Rebecca Nystrom. This program is her passion, as she meets with every borrower and works with them to create a personalized business plan.
Our average loan last year was $1,826. After selling their market animal at auction at their local county fair, and after paying off their loan, the average student borrower netted a profit of $2,450! You do that for multiple years and you’ve earned a good base to fund your college education
Our Ag Loan Program is now available for to all our LOCAL 4-H and FFA students gearing up for fair season. If you’d like to an application visit us online, at your favorite branch, or contact Rebecca (
rnystrom@comfirstcu.org
) for more information.
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Shred the Word! Shred Days are Back!
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Personal documents can easily become a target for would-be identity thieves; that’s why Community First is providing FREE community Shred Days as a solution to the problem.
Bring your documents to the host branch and have them shredded and safely disposed of by our on-site service provider.
It’s one more way we’re helping to protect you from identity theft.
Five-box limit (file-size box) per person. Open to Members and their friends.
Upcoming dates + locations:
Lakeport, Thursday, April 9
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Fort Bragg, Friday, April 10
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Sebastopol, Thursday, April 23
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Clearlake, Thursday, April 23
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Ukiah, Friday, April 24
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Santa Rosa (HQ), Saturday, April 25
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Napa, Saturday, May 16
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All Shred Days will be hosted from
9a to 11a
. Spread the word!
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Who Cares About a New Year’s Diet? We’re Expanding Products. And Proud of it!
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Our broad mix of mortgage solutions just got broader.
Community First does all the cookie-cutter loans, but brings them to borrowers at a lesser cost. We also do a vineyard full of unique loans for unique properties, bought by unique buyers.
Allow us to introduce three new deal-saving portfolio products:
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A loan for a borrower or property that will likely never become conforming. These are buyers who typically have to pay cash or borrow private money. Now they have a money-saving borrowing option from a LOCAL financial institution.
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A fixed-rate non-conforming loan that, in the future, is very likely to become eligible to be refinanced as a conforming loan. Maybe it’s the property’s situation: it still needs a kitchen, or foundation work, or a permit. Maybe it’s the borrower’s circumstances: she has income from a trust, but only one distribution to date, or income from a property, but not a long enough track record, etc.
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Fixed-rate jumbo for a primary residence. This loan will be completely done under the CFCU roof, and NOT positioned for sale to the secondary market. This means broader latitude and greater understanding in LOCAL in-house underwriting. Also, Community First is adding $1 million to the maximum amount that can be borrowed. Was $1.5 million; now it’s a more generous $2.5 million!
Your best and most experienced real estate resource just got better –– and broader.
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707-546-6000
PO Box 6004,
Santa Rosa, CA 95406
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