ALTERNATIVES FEDERAL CREDIT UNION, Ithaca, New York

Ithaca, New York, home to Cornell University and Ithaca College, is a picturesque lakeside town of 30,000 people where responses to racial and economic inequity reflect an unusual willingness to confront mainstream thinking when it fails the community. Some residents are challenged by the hardships of low- and middle-income survival. Often choosing alternative lifestyles or working for minimum wages, citizens are unable to obtain loans or credit from established institutions to start or improve small businesses. Many have found the financial support to succeed from within their own community.

The Alternatives-financed long Point Winery building under construction Gelatin silver print © Bill Burke 1999	Justin Armstrong, a Cayuga Wooden Boatworks employee Gelatin silver print © Bill Burke 1999

For twenty years, Ithaca's Alternatives Federal Credit Union (AFCU), has given locals a fair chance to improve the quality of their lives by providing low-cost financial services to individuals and small businesses that traditional banks might refuse. Founded in Ithaca as a banking alternative, the member-run organization offers affordable mortgages and business loans as part of its services. By banking the funds of local people and redistributing them to local businesses and homeowners whose successes will eventually improve the community, Alternatives is investing in local enterprise, independent of big business and out-of-town financial institutions. The program has also supported an organized system of barter with its own monetary unit-the "Ithaca Hour," which can be exchanged as currency within the community.

Photographer Bill Burke initially recognized for his portrait work, has produced several documentary commissions. He is known for his personal narratives and for his iconoclastic views of capitalism. His images introduce Ithaca residents connected to AFCU and the business projects the Alternatives has helped to finance. Pictured are a new winery and Justin Armstrong at Cayuga Boatworks.

Interviewer Joe Wood, an author and prominent voice on contemporary American culture, is interested in issues of race and class. His interviews share the stories of people who worked to establish the credit union as well as those who have received financial support, or use Alternatives as their bank. They tell us their individual reasons for joining the financial cooperative and how they benefited from its service. quotation from an interview
 
 

http://www.creativephotography.org    This page last updated September 24, 2000.   oncenter@ccp.arizona.edu