Arsenal employees had a busy second half of 2019, volunteering their time for some awesome causes. To our members who donated to the drives we held in 2019 – thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Warner’s Warm-Up Coat Drive

We all know that St. Louis winters can be tough. For the past several years we’ve been collecting coats and other cold-weather clothes for Kurt and Brenda Warner’s organization. This year, we collected a total of 200 coats to donate to those in need.

Toy Drive

This holiday season, we collected a total of 320 toys and donated them to three local organizations: Epworth, Family Forward and Jefferson County Foster Children’s Fund.

Christmas Light Recycling

Just about every other year, we have collection bins at several of our branches for old and broken Christmas lights. Our partners at Midwest Recycling Center collect the bins in January once everyone has a chance to take their lights down. This year we kept 1,473 pounds of lights out of landfills.

Red Cross Blood Drives

We hosted the Red Cross bloodmobile at our Arnold branch twice in the second half of 2019. In June, we collected 19 units of blood. In November, we collected 23 units. In total, the blood we collected was able to help 126 patients in need.

Food Drive

Brenden’s Friday Backpacks is an organization in Arnold, Missouri, that makes sure kids in need have enough to eat when they’re not in school on the weekends. We love their mission, so we supported them with an SUV full of food we collected from our fall food drive and an $800 donation.

During our fall food drive, we also donated some items to Bayless School District and Interfaith Food Pantry in Swansea, Illinois.

Sack Lunches and Blessing Bags

Throughout the year, we make and distribute sack lunches and blessing bags (full of toiletries and other personal care items) to St. Patrick Center in downtown St. Louis. This fall we also donated items to other organizations, including Project Compassion in Belleville, Illinois, and Disability Resources Association in Festus, Missouri.

Financial Education

Throughout 2019, we gave 62 presentations at local high schools, middle schools and grade schools. We reached a total of 1,214 students. We also sponsor a web-based financial literacy program for students at five local high schools. In April, we awarded four young men and women $5,400 through our scholarship program.

Community Events

Arsenal goes to countless events throughout the year to teach people about the credit union difference. In the last half of 2019, some notable events we attended include a dog park opening in Arnold and the Affton Days Parade.

Check out some of the ways we gave back during the first part of the year.