Valerie Nakao Umeda

Denied by the few banks that survived the Great Depression, farmers banded to create the Kona Farmers Federal Credit Union in 1936 to support their needs for loans and additional financial services. It took only three years before the field of membership expanded to include members of the local community, and steady growth defined the next several decades. By 1991, a decade after acquiring Kohala Federal Credit Union, we became Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union and soon expanded membership to the entire Hawaii Island. We are exponentially larger than we were in the beginning, but we continue to hold true to our fundamental philosophy – a group of people joining together to help each other succeed. We're proud to be the only credit union in the United States founded by farmers cultivating a unique crop grown nowhere else – Kona coffee. You may consider it a specialty bean, but we will always call it our roots.