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THE BRANDON SUN • WESTMAN BUSINESS • OCTOBER 27, 2022 Supporting your business, community
BY ERIN DEBOOY
After more than two years of unprece- dented times, Sunrise Credit Union is em- bracing a new normal — supporting local businesses and taking small steps to make members’ lives a little easier. “Anything we can do to help our local small businesses, we tried to do,” said Tay- ona Johnas, VP of Wealth and Marketing at Sunrise Credit Union. “Our local business people along with our farmers — because we see agriculture as a very local business — these people are the backbone of our community. Without them, we don’t have a community.” In 2020, Sunrise Credit Union launched GoShopLocal.ca, an initiative that aims to increase the visibility of small businesses in the 19 communities Sunrise operates and beyond. The website is free for businesses to use, and helps promote local businesses both online and through traditional media. “It has been received very well. A lot of the businesses on there … don’t have the means or the marketing team to be able to do this on their own, and marketing dol- lars are a really hard thing to spend when you want to keep the hydro on or a pay- cheque being paid,” Johnas said. “Sunrise has a marketing department, we have the skill set, for us to be able to channel that into a website that benefits all these communities and the businesses in those communities…it’s really important.” Even as things start to return to normal, Johnas said the website will be kept run- ning as a valuable resource for communi- ties. “People in the community are looking for more local businesses to support, be- cause if anything through the pandemic, people have realized how important com- munity is,” Johnas said. Sunrise Credit Union has also contin- ued to fundraise. The organization raises an average of $40,000 each year through various fundraising events, which gets donated to a worthwhile group, organiza- tion or cause in their respective commu- nities. The Sunrise staff also put in close to 6,000 volunteer hours annually to com- munity groups, organizations, sports teams, and events. “Our staff does a phenomenal job of vol- unteering, so where there’s a need in our community, they usually know the need ahead of corporate,” Johnas said. “That’s why we have people on the ground mak- ing a difference. It helps to make sure we get those needs met and identify where we can make a change so we can help people. During the pandemic, Sunrise Cred- it Union tried to make things easier for members, Johnas said, removing fees for e-transfers and online banking, for exam- ple, so people could do their banking no
Sunrise Credit Union set up GoShopLocal.ca to promote local small businesses. (Supplied photo)
signatures) took off like wildfire,” Johnas said. “It sped up processes … it made a difference and is now part of our standard routine. It works well for people with ac- cessibility issues and also, being a farm- ing community, for people who work long or off hours and can’t conveniently stop into a branch …having technology that can facilitate the ease of getting the task done has just made life easier.” Going forward, Sunrise Credit Union will continue to do what they can to sup- port local businesses and communities as a whole, Johnas said. “It’s great to be part of an organization that recognizes how important we are to each other as people … it just makes you proud to be a part of it.”
Anything we can do to help our local small businesses, we tried to do.”
– TAYONA JOHNAS VP OF WEALTH AND MARKETING SUNRISE CREDIT UNION
contact. “We were teaching people how to use online banking over the phone in some cases, which ended up being a really valu- able tool for some people,” Johnas said. Branches also started using electron- ic signatures during the pandemic, and Johnas said it’s been such a success that they’ve adopted the technology going for- ward. “Sometimes new technologies can take a while to be adopted, but (electronic
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