Selfreliance Federal Credit Union

Selfreliance Federa S elfreliance Federal Credit Union was chartered in the Summer of 1951 with a mandate to serve Chicago’s newly arrived Ukrainian immigrant population. Its founding members had come to the United States with experience in co-operative banking and they founded the credit union with the hope of offering Ukrainian-American immigrants a stake in the American Dream. For the first two-and-half years, the credit union operated on a volunteer basis, the board PROMOT ING THE AMER ICAN DREAM members, tellers, loan officers and manager all worked out of a Chicago Ukrainian Community Center in their spare time. For its earliest members, the credit union offered a sense of familiarity to a growing population, who arrived from the Soviet Union and settled across the Midwest. “During our first forty years the credit union basically served 1st and 2nd generation Ukrainian-American immigrants who were trying to preserve their national identity which had been trampled under the soviet regime in their homeland,” says Selfreliance President