Provident's Ways to Work program was center stage when the national Ways to Board of Directors and management staff made a rare site visit on March 30th. But the stars of the show were two people that the program is helping build better lives.

"I'm very grateful for the opportunity," said Bridgette C., trying to hold back tears as she spoke to about a dozen national board members and management on Thursday, March 30, who stopped off at Provident's Yalem office.

The board was in St. Louis for a quarterly board meeting and the visit to Provident was one of its first site visits ever to a local Ways to Work site. Ways to Work is a national initiative that started in St. Louis in August 2004. Minnesota's McKnight Foundation began the family loan program in 1984. Since then, loan programs in 25 states have provided more than $36 million to more than 23,000 families.

Bridgette (center), with Provident's
Darren Henderson and Allona Morris

Bridgette and Imani, two mothers who are recipients of low-interest loans through the program to buy cars, spoke emotionally about what transportation meant in their lives. They also lauded other aspects of the program, including its emphasis on financial literacy. "Your credit is your life," Jones said, saying that she wasn't really aware of the importance of credit until she got involved in Ways to Work here.

Allona Morris, Darren Henderson, and Johanna Wharton outlined the local program during the hour and a half meeting. Board members, many from financial institutions and foundations around the country, lauded the staff's attention to individual clients and partnerships with other organizations. Carol Berde, board chair, and formerly executive vice president of The McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, and founder of the program, said Ways to Work had become a "blending of banking and social work." Allona Morris added, "We hug a lot around here."