Aaron is the Community Lead for Marine Credit Union.
We're just talking about Jim Gaffigan.
And you thought he was from Wisconsin, Indiana.
And we ran a radio bit this morning.
He's talking about his home in Indiana where he lived.
And he said he took his wife back there.
And he said,
It looks like a bomb went off.
It looks like Stalin designed all the buildings and it's like squalor where he came from.
And his wife said, you lived here?
But
anyway, were you from originally?
I'm originally from Jamesville, Wisconsin.
Oh, that's right.
I grew up in Jamesville, was born in Beloit, Wisconsin.
A local yokel.
in Wisconsin.
Right on the, right on the border there.
Right under South Beloit, which is Illinois.
was in
family, right?
No.
I grew up listening to baseball games on the radio.
Well, that's close enough.
Aspired to be a sports radio commentary, the next generation Bob Uker, but that never amounted to nothing.
By the
I think it's, is it?
No, it's not free.
You have to subscribe.
It might be free one day.
It's on one of the streaming networks, the movie Uke for 24 hours only.
And that's it.
I forgot what it was.
They were talking about it here on WRJN.
I forgot.
You get old, you forget
these things.
Well, stay tuned, but I'm sure that commercial will pop back up.
I was in the airport picking up somebody late at night at Mitchell.
The airport was mainly empty and he's sitting there in a chair, just staring at the wall.
I said, Bob Uker, he says, yes, he sprung to life.
And I said, it's a pleasure to meet you in honor.
He said, well, thank you.
Thank you very much.
And then he went back to sitting again.
I was waiting for a flight or waiting to pick someone up.
But that's my claim to fame with Bob Uker.
Or you got a lot of things coming up.
Now your job at Marine Credit Union, which is a credit union.
I mean, it's where you have accounts and memberships and you save money, get loans and everything.
But you're not part of that.
You're part of the community lead.
You're to make sure Marine Credit Union stays, you know, vibrant in the community.
Yeah, so before I was a community leader, actually, I was a senior consumer loan officer helping individuals on their financial journey.
Oh, you were one, okay.
Yeah, so I actually started as an intern, but that's a whole other story for a different time.
Wait, I
Did you feel
Well, unfortunately, the reality is that we can't approve everyone.
I know institution can, but the good thing is that's the difference talking about banks and credit unions is that when you have a, uh, if we have to turn someone down, it's not a, Hey, no, it's a not right now, but here's what we can do to get you on that path.
I know, I just, um, and really dive into that relationship aspect of building someone from where they're at, wherever that may be to where they want to go and how we can help get them there.
You're crushing somebody's dream.
I couldn't do that.
I couldn't do that to another human being.
You know, if it's Ed Gein, I probably could have done it.
But I couldn't crush a dream of somebody.
And that's just, that's just me.
I don't, I can't, I have trouble saying no to people.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it, I view it not as crushing their dreams, but.
A big ring is different way around.
A repath, restructuring and getting, sometimes people taking those dreams into goals and goals into reality.
That's, that's what the journey is all about.
Yes, it really is coming up in October.
Well, you know, back to schools in full swing here.
So, you know, we are very passionate about giving back and financially empowering all generations, but especially the youth here.
We do a lot of financial education in the classrooms K through 12 and even in the colleges.
And we're just so grateful for amazing community partners.
A lot of awesome nonprofits in this area doing some.
after school and during school programming.
And we do a lot of work with junior achievement and secure futures that really do a great job of providing valuable life lessons and financial education tools to really help chart the course of that next generation.
And it's crazy, October is coming up.
Here in September, we do have Hispanic Heritage Month, which starts on the 15th.
It goes from September 15th to October 15th.
And if you guys are looking for something fun to do this weekend, I'm going to butcher the name, but it's Festival Orguyo, Hispano.
It's a six-annual Hispanic Heritage Festival that's on the beautiful Kenosha Lakefront.
And that's a free event.
It's absolutely free.
There's going to be a lot of great music.
dancing, arts and crafts and all sorts of great community resources.
Not to mention a lot of amazing food.
So support local businesses, have some fun here.
That starts from 12 noon to 10 p.m.
So a little party on a Sunday night.
We will be there from about 12 to six.
So if you do stop by, be on the lookout for the Marine Credit Union tent.
So give me the date of that again.
That is this Sunday, September 13th.
in the Kenosha lakefront.
Again, absolutely free entry.
You can purchase tacos or some food or beverages.
A lot of great family activities involved.
There is a inflatable mechanical bolt, Don.
So if you do decide to come on out, I would love to see that happen.
Get on a mechanical bolt.
That's my goal this year for this event.
bolt.
Am I dating myself here?
Exactly.
But when you're mentioning October, we do a lot of cool things throughout the year to empower our communities.
And it's hard to think we're thinking about warm up with Marine, which is our winter item supply drive that we do every October.
But if you guys are also looking to clean out your closet this weekend or from now anytime between now and the end of October We'll be happy to take any winter items that you no longer have use for and we support our friends at the Salvation Army and it's been a blessing.
We've been doing that for about four years now, so Come on stop by and see us here on Green Bay Road and starting in October will be collecting But if you want me to make a special pissed off, I'll be happy to
take your winter items and put them to good use.
You know, there are a lot of great programs that do job readiness or professional attire.
So if you do have some of that, reach out to me.
I'll put those to good hands.
So we're hopping around here.
Let me see where we are here.
We talked about Hispanic Heritage Month.
Yes.
Which is coming up September 15th or October 15th.
My wife is Hispanic.
So we'll see.
Your mom is from
David Panama.
David, not David.
David.
You gotta say it right.
David Panama.
So she's, she's Hispanic.
So we'll get her involved in all this stuff.
South Freelick Community Partnership.
What's that?
Yeah.
So, um, as you may know, Don, we, like I said, have a passion for giving back to our community.
And we'd like to partner with organizations and nonprofits that also share that same passion and.
South Freelike Brewers, Gold Glove, Star.
He is a word Berto Clemente award winner, which essentially means he's really good on the field, but he's even better off the field.
He loves to give back to the community in his spare time.
And so we have a partnership where we're
Sharing our values and collaborating together later on today.
I'll be actually at Feeding America In their warehouse with Sal and his one day off they've had like 16 games and 16 days and he spent his afternoon off Helping our community and we're gonna be doing a lot of fun promotions with him and so
I believe so he died.
He was there to help and the plane went down with him in it
and that way giving your life for other people.
Speaking with Aaron McCullen, Community Lead for Marine Credit Union.
We've got a ton of stuff we're talking about.
You're always involved in the community.
So this is what you do.
You've got to find out what the community is looking for and offer a
solution.
Absolutely.
When people ask what I do, I like to say I find ways to serve, support and engage and empower our community.
Oh, I know what I
We talk about community service.
And the comedian we had on the air said, in America, we consider community service a punishment.
Right into prison time, you have to do community service.
And we treat it like it's a punishment.
It's not a punishment.
It's a feel good thing.
You feel good after helping other people, whether you're getting them loans or whatever you do.
I mean, you're fulfilling somebody's dreams when you give them a loan.
It's a dream.
I want to own a home.
It's a dream.
I want to buy a car.
It's a dream.
People couldn't do this stuff.
But yet.
You know, you get a loan, you can do it.
Nobody's got, you know, $200,000 walking around in their pocket.
So you get a loan, you do it.
So you fulfill dreams.
And when you work with a community, whether you got to collect clothing, it's somebody's dream you're helping out with.
But in this country, the courts keep...
Well, you got a choice prison or community service.
What do you want to do?
That's what we treated and it shouldn't be treated like that.
You should
be honored to be involved.
It's so fun to serve our community and it's not that sounds so cliche coming from your community lead, but I mean, whether it's with your spouse, your loved ones, my family and I love to give back.
We do
food pantries or make meals and picking up trash on our neighborhood walks.
Like something small like that is just a fun way of like making yourself feel better and having sense of pride in our community.
It's really inspiring.
I make probably a mediocre above average peanut butter and jelly.
I'm really good at making cereal.
in my
my brother... I learn something new every single time we have a conversation.
Just never had it.
Your friendly encouragement, not only to you, but to your listeners to try something new today.
Well, I used to have a lot of little debbie cakes.
Those I could tell you.
I
Yeah, so if you have heard in the past, and maybe you've stopped by, but we do workshops for our community, absolutely free.
Each session is a different topic.
Just yesterday, we did some banking essentials and practical safe banking tools and had a good conversation with that.
And then on September 29th,
from four to six p.m.
We will be having a workshop talking about being an empowered renter or an empowered owner, a homeowner.
And if you are aspiring to be a homeowner, some practical tips and tools that you can set yourself up for to achieve your goals.
Like we talked about earlier, taking those goals into dreams, from those dreams into goals and then devising a plan to achieve those goals.
And so
Free food free resources now we're talking free food.
Absolutely.
Yes.
That's outside of the content.
That's my next big favorite part You know ship and food
my dad He grew up in an apartment in Brooklyn and by the Coney Island section of Brooklyn then he when we got When I was born my brother's born believed in the Bronx in an apartment and he said to my mother I heard this later on we were gonna buy a house That's what my dream is to buy a house.
So we went up to Long Island and back in the 50s
It was pretty rural out there, so they were building a whole new development in Massapeak, New York, and he went out.
The house was $14,500.
He went on the GI bill to get a loan, but he needed the down payment because he just got out of the war, World War II.
So he went down, borrowed $10 from his brother, put it down, went to the bank, got the loan, a 30-year mortgage, and he said, this was my dream, to have a family and a house, not live in an apartment in the Bronx, but to actually have a house.
And there was a bank on Long Island, I guess, fulfilled his dreams.
And this was his big thing.
He has a family with a house.
And that house is not for everybody, because you've got to take care of it.
You've got to mow the lawn.
Some people like apartment living, condo living.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Absolutely.
A lot of responsibility too.
And so that's why in this workshop we're going to talk how to be a successful homeowner and not just hit paying your bills on time is great, but how to, uh, winterize your house or save money where you can.
And there's always something going
Yeah.
You
You don't do them all
Exactly.
It's fun owning a house.
You're exactly describing the essence of the American dream, right?
It's from that place of financial need into a life of ownership and giving back to your community and your father's testimony is such a...
beautiful story of giving back and his servant leadership of giving back through his time serving our country.
That's so inspiring.
I think that's a nice little tie-in too.
If you want to mark your calendars, if you are a veteran, if you know a veteran, have a family or a friend member, friend who is a veteran, one of my favorite parts of Racine County is we have an amazing veteran service office.
And they do a lot of great work to support veterans and veterans families.
That leads into the stand down.
Exactly.
And I am sure you've had some folks talk about it in the past, but it's such a wonderful community event.
The veterans stand down as a free community resource.
for veterans and their families.
That will be held on October 3rd at the beautiful Festival Hall.
And we will be there.
We love encouraging and hearing from our community and our veterans and just wanted to find ways we can serve and support.
So if you are interested, that is on October 3rd from 10 a.m.
to 2 p.m.
Again, a lot of great community resources.
You mentioned the GI Bill, a lot of
veterans service resources, a lot of community organizations are there to support and provide resources.
And so a lot of, I can go on and on about fun stories I've interacted with from those events.
And that's always one of them.
When we look at what we do each year, that's one of my favorite events to attend and support.
That's life changing.
And it started with a $10 collaborative, cooperative investment.
You're describing the credit union principles, Don.
He had to go borrow from his brother in Brooklyn.
He said, I need 10 bucks to put down on the house just to hold it.
And he gave the guy 10 bucks just to hold the house till he can get the loan.
And he got the loan.
But basically because
Four years in the service during World War Two, veterans were getting, you know, loans and it helped out.
Absolutely.
Hall.
October 3rd.
And hey, while we're talking about October 2, the following Saturday at the Racine Library, there's a digital inclusion workshop and digital inclusion fair.
And so that's a great resource event to talk about safe banking.
We will be there sharing resources and other great organizations will be sharing resources on how to stay empowered in a digital world.
You know, things aren't what they were back in the fifties.
So,
program.
Oh, absolutely.
You really tee it up there, Don.
Um, you know, if, if you have not heard from about Marine Credit Union in the past, we just want to take this time just to thank you for being a part of our community.
Um,
We are a community-based credit union.
We remember owned and operated.
We're committed to being more than a financial institution.
We really want to be that true community partner in the communities that we serve and we want to invest our time, our resources and our people into the places that we call home.
And so whether that is through supporting fun local events or doing fun drives to give back to our community or educational opportunities or workshops and supporting community organizations, we're proud to help build that stronger community.
You know, like I said, we are on that mission of taking our community from a place of financial need to a life of ownership and then giving back into that community.
And we really live that out through our servant led people first approach.
And that is all in the core values that we have of commitment being committed to our community, having a compassionate heart.
So when we do have to make those tough conversations, like turning someone down from their current dreams or goals,
We have a compassionate approach and turn those nos into yeses down the road.
We also want to be a collaborative effort.
So collaborating with WRJN or the library or other amazing workshop, uh, community organizations like our veteran service office and so many others.
Um, and just having the courage to do things that people maybe aren't doing or having those, uh, conversations in a courage and compassionate way.
So it's just a blessing to serve our community and be a part of this.
If you are interested in learning more, what we're doing, how we help and what we can do to help not only you, but our community, reach out to myself or visit marinescu.com.
If you go on that marinescu.com, you'll see a community impact page and you can see all the work that we're up to and feel free to search Marine Credit Union on social media.
And we love to stay connected and help you chart your course to financial empowerment.
That's
Thanks for having us and we'll see you next month.
Okay, sounds good.