Addition Financial Credit Union Shares First-Place Honors for the 2026 Tekkie Award for People Helping People

By W.B. King

True to the credit union mission, the Finopotamus Tekkie Award for People Helping People recognizes an initiative, program, or team effort that significantly improved the lives of members or the community in 2025.

In the spirit of this category, which supports the ethos of the credit union movement, the judges determined that the first-place designation should be shared by the six nominees: Addition Financial Credit Union, Advia Credit Union, Holy Rosary Credit Union, NET Credit Union, St. Louis Community Credit Union, TruStage Ventures Discovery Fund, and United Consumers Credit Union. Presented in no particular order, Addition Financial Credit Union is spotlighted next. The $3 billion Lake Mary, Fla.-based credit union serves over 180,000 members.

Making Learning Possible

Imagine if a student faced hunger, homelessness, or lack of basic necessities—challenges that make learning nearly impossible. Recognizing this growing issue in local schools, Addition Financial Credit Union transformed its long-running “Renovate to Educate” initiative to focus on meeting the essential needs of vulnerable students and families, explained Cristina Lehman, Executive Director of the Addition Financial Foundation.

“Originally launched in 2017 as a classroom makeover contest for teachers, ‘Renovate to Educate’ evolved in 2025 into a program dedicated to renovating and stocking school ‘needs spaces’ and pantries that provide food, clothing, hygiene items, and school supplies for students experiencing homelessness or financial hardship,” she explained.

Lehman and her team worked with local districts to identify schools with the greatest need, transforming underutilized spaces into “welcoming resource centers” designed to provide “discreet, dignified support” for students and families.

“In 2025, the program renovated and restocked needs spaces at four Central Florida public schools. Each location received approximately $4,000 in renovations and supplies, creating organized, welcoming spaces stocked with essential items that help remove barriers to learning,” she told Finopotamus. “The initiative brought together 47 Addition Financial employee volunteers (who put in 378 hours of work), school administrators, and community partners to complete the renovations and organize the spaces.”

In total, the “new and improved resource centers” have the potential to support more than the 280 students who are experiencing homelessness and approximately 2,800 additional low-income students and families across the four schools, she added.

“For Addition Financial, whose roots trace back to educators nearly nine decades ago, supporting schools is a core part of the credit union’s mission,” Lehman continued. “‘Renovate to Educate’ represents the credit union philosophy of people helping people in action—mobilizing employees, partners, and community resources to create tangible, lasting improvements for students who need it most.”

Addressing Community Challenges

The credit union’s noble efforts were supported by different technology platforms, including the project management tool Wrike and the Microsoft 365 suite.

“This enabled Addition Financial teams, the Addition Financial Foundation, school administrators, and volunteers to coordinate renovations across multiple schools,” Lehman noted. “These tools helped track project timelines, organize volunteer schedules, manage supply needs, and ensure effective communication among all project partners.”

To raise community awareness, Addition Financial used Hootsuite’s social media tools as well as Muck Rack’s media research and distribution capabilities to efficiently showcase the transformation of the needs spaces and highlight the real-world impact of the initiative, she explained. “By combining community service with digital coordination and storytelling tools, Addition Financial was able to scale the impact of ‘Renovate to Educate,’ while engaging employees, partners, and the broader community.”

The campaign also produced 27 social media posts that achieved higher engagement rates across platforms, including Facebook (24%), LinkedIn (17.5%), and Instagram (7%).

“The ‘Renovate to Educate’ program earned 23 media placements across broadcast television, local newspapers, digital outlets, and credit union trade publications, helping raise awareness of both the issue of student homelessness and the role credit unions can play in addressing community challenges,” Lehman said.