Sun Word Credit Union is marking its Durango Opening by giving more local small businesses access to the Chamber of Commerce. You're watching the Local News Network, brought to you by m and r, plumbing and Durango Gelato Coffee and Tea. I'm Connor Shrieve, sun Word Credit Union's. Durango Branch is the Albuquerque based not-for-profit, cooperative Credit union's 16th branch. The credit union has donated $5,000 to help small businesses join the Durango Chamber of Commerce.

Sometimes paying the fees and the dues to be a part of the Chamber isn't in everyone's budget, especially when you're a brand new business, just barely getting started. You have a lot of startup costs. There's a lot of things you have to account for. So Sunbird wanted to take the initiative and help small businesses become a part of the Chamber without having to worry about how they were going to pay for their dues

Offering many of the same services of a traditional bank. Credit unions operate under a different model. Branch Manager Hill Martinez says the main difference is where the customer's money goes.

Sun Word's, shareholders are our members. So all of the profit that Sun Word makes throughout the year goes back to our shareholders with lower rates, no fees on checking accounts. We are, we're very lenient on the fees that we even do charge. We offer a lot of services that a traditional bank, their fees would be much higher. Ours are not.

Martinez views financial literacy as a right and says Sun Word works to educate customers on building healthy habits.

We want people to think about the biggest life events that they have. We want them to think about retirement. Maybe their kids are going off to college, maybe there's a new baby on the way, and they're thinking, oh man, how am I going to do this? How is this going to work? And the first place they should turn to is their financial institution. And if you don't feel comfortable doing that with your bank, we want to be here for you to feel comfortable doing that with us.

The Durango branch is the credit Union's first foray into Colorado with now 16 locations in New Mexico, California, and the Centennial State.

There are so many things that the Durango community might struggle with, like housing and affordable housing and getting people into homes. And that was something that Sunwood felt. Maybe we could fill that need. Maybe we could come in and we could provide lower mortgage rates. We could provide better HELOC rates for like renovations to sell houses, to build houses. We have a very robust commercial lending department that would be able to help developers if they wanted to build more affordable housing In Durango,

Martinez says, Sunwood values the tight-knit community feel of Durango. Since opening on April 29th, Sunwood has served more than 150 local customers

Just in the first month alone. So from April 29th to June 1st, we were able to refinance six or seven vehicles and every single person whose vehicle we refinanced, we saved them minimum $75 a month on their payment and up to three or 4% on their rate. Every month,

Small business owners can apply for the Sun Word Common Spirit Scholarship on the Durango Chamber of Commerce website. Learn more about this and other stories at Durango Local News. Thanks for watching this edition of The Local News Network. I'm Connor Shreve.