We helped ORNL Federal Credit Union launch Young & Free Tennessee today!

I am excited to unveil Young & Free Tennessee for Oak Ridge's ORNL Federal Credit Union. I'm excited because:

• ORNL is Tennessee's second-largest credit union. ORNL is just under $1.3 billion in assets and it's branch network surrounds the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee. We feel strongly that ORNL can have a huge impact in its community with Young & Free.
• We are working with another fabulous team that is very excited about Young & Free. The team at ORNL has been great to work with. The core team that includes Jessica, Christian, Nancy, Tom and Leslie have championed Young & Free and have really made it their own.
• Another Young & Free region is now live and will help in fulfilling our purpose. Tennessee is the fifth region to go live and joins Alabama, Alberta, South Carolina and Texas. Simply put, it is our purpose to help credit unions deepen their relationships with members and to persuade bank customers to become credit union members. We feel that the Young & Free Spokester Challenge has the potential to attract tens of thousands of new members to the credit union movement and ORNL is another ideal partner.

Here are some of the pieces

Young & Free Tennessee microsite

Video: Are you the Voice of  Young & Free Tennessee?

Clockwise from top left: posters, staff information kits, online banner ads, billboards and print ads

Here's how the program works:

• Young adults will visit youngfreetennessee.com and fill out an application
• Everyone can watch and participate as the applicants are narrowed down to three finalists
• Site visitors will vote for the finalist they think should be the winner
• The winner will receive a full-time position worth $30,000 per year, a MacBook Pro computer, a Canon HD camcorder and an iPhone
• Prizes will be awarded to the other two finalists as well
• The winning spokesperson is expected to write four text-based blog posts per week, produce one video per week, produce at least one segment for the Living Young & Free Show per month and attend a number of events as the spokesperson per month

Sandy and I traveled to the Knoxville area of Tennessee in November. We had a great time getting to know the ORNL team and also touring around the area. We had the extremely memorable experience of attending a University of Tennessee Volunteer's football game in a stadium that seats over 100,000 people! We learned all about cornhole and that tailgating is not just following a car too closely.

Please take a moment and visit the Young & Free Tennessee microsite. You can also follow along on Twitter and Facebook.

Tim