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mayor of the City of Toledo; DeShone Kizer, football star
quarterback at Central Catholic, University of Notre Dame
and now, a rookie with the Cleveland Browns; Betty Jean
Long, long-time TUFCU member and retired clinical resource
assistant at Toledo Children’s Hospital; Rockey Love,
director of programming for Urban Radio Broadcasting; Toledo
City Councilman Tyrone Riley and Paul Toth, president and
CEO of Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority.
Special honors were
presented to Reginald Temple and Susan Jester of First
Federal Bank; to new employee Yalonda Richardson and to Tina
Butts, Sharon Roach and Harriet Hardy of the Nathan Hale
Back 2 School Bash
“I worked at a bank both as a teller and in the compliance
department,” Cowell said by way of introducing the honorees.
“When loan applications came in they would first look at the
zip codes and then they would turn down the application. I
prayed that there would be a financial institution that
would consider a person by credit worthiness.”
That opportunity came at a meeting that stemmed from a 1992
shooting incident. During that meeting an eight-point
community development plan was discussed. The credit union
was on that list.
According to Cowell, they canvassed the community to test
the climate and the possible receptivity for a credit union,
and what they learned was that many people did not have any
relationship with a financial institution, didn’t trust
banks and many kept their money at home.
Afterwards, Cowell forged a partnership with Bishop Duane C.
Tisdale, and TUFCU was launched at the nurses’ station of
Friendship Baptist Church.
“We were set up at the nurses’ station in Friendship,” says
Cowell. “We would open accounts during service.” But soon
the membership began to grow and so did the need for a
larger space.
In 1996, former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner
came to the credit union’s charter
signing, saw how large the crowds were and offered the
former Dorr Street location.
And in July 1996 TUFCU opened Ohio’s first community credit
union in eight years.
With the invaluable assistance of the Toledo Urban
Foundation, particularly Board President Richard LaValley,
Jr and Board Vice President Sister Pam Buganski, TUFCU was
able, in December 2015, to finally realize a dream when the
organization opened its own free-standing building, at 1441
Dorr Street. The move has proven to be a boon to increasing
credit union membership and making the credit union’s
services and products available to an ever-increasing number
of Toledo residents.
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