Vickswood Federal Credit Union has undergone a lot of changes in the last half century they’ve been in business, but has remained true to its Warren County roots.

Vickswood FCU will celebrate 50 years in business with an open house today at 11:30 at their 107 Thalweg Drive location.

It was 50 years ago this month when employees at the local International Paper Mill formed their own credit union.

Howard Austin was among those who were involved with the credit union from the beginning.

“At that time, people had come from other IP sites and they had credit unions and we wanted one at our site too,” Austin said. “We got the state league to help us organize it. We borrowed money from another credit union to get started.”

A year later, the credit union name was changed to Vickswood Credit Union due to the number of members.

Credit unions are member-owned, not-for-profit financial cooperatives that are established to serve a particular group of individuals with a common bond such as employment, associational affiliation or geographic affiliation.

Through the years, there was a merger with Anderson Tully Credit Union and also the Vicksburg Warren School District Credit Union, but in 2014, VFCU expanded their field of membership to also include individuals who live, work, attend school or worship in Warren and Yazoo counties.

Earlier this year, VFCU changed from a state charter to a federal credit union.

“It’s still one of the best things out there for working folks and especially young people,” said Austin, who was nominated to the credit union board in the 1970s and is now the chairman. “They don’t realize how much help it is to get started when young.”

VFCU has approximately 2,000 members and also has a location in Redwood at the IP plant. Even though it has grown from that original 300 members, Austin said “we still know just about every one of them on a first name basis.”

Austin said the advancement in technology since the inception of VFCU has been one of the biggest innovations.

“We used to do it on index cards and now we have online banking. But we’re still going on the same principle of people helping people,” Austin said. “Things have changed, but we still believe in that.”

For more information on Vickswood Federal Credit Union, call them at 601-636-4434 or visit their website at vickswoodcu.com.