After months of remodeling, the Hastings branch of Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union located at 1731 N. Frontage Road has fully reopened for business. After 13 years in the current location, it was time for a remodel, and it was worth the wait.

The Hastings branch had been completely closed for several weeks to finish the reconstruction process with the lobby being closed weeks before the drive-through. Customers were sent to the Saint Paul location during the closure.

There was plenty to do before the grand re-opening ceremony and ribbon cutting. Hastings Fire Department had a couple vehicles for families to explore along with personnel to chat with, there were giveaways, free hot dogs, ice cream and music. Affinity Plus’s President and CEO, Steve Larson, was on hand, along with Branch Manager Natasha Waltman, employees, shareholders and members of the chamber of commerce to celebrate the re-opening.

Waltman kicked things off, “I just want to say thank you to everybody who has come here to celebrate today with us for our grand reopening and remodel. Affinity plus is the only credit union in Hastings, and we are proud to be a part of this community. We have served the city and the surrounding area for the last 13 years. But I really want to thank all of our members for all of your patience and grace with us while we were shut down to do this remodel and to provide this beautiful new space. The Hastings team and myself are so proud to be a part of this community. As a not for profit financial cooperative, everything we do is for our members, and we look forward to serving everybody for many more years to be your financial partner and to invest in this community. So, I just thank you. Thank you to everybody here today from my heart.”

“My name is Steve Larson. I'm the president and CEO of Affinity Plus, on behalf of our 255,000 members, really all over the world, but to our Hasting members here today, thank you for coming. We serve about 5000 people here in the community of Hastings and banking is evolving like a lot of things today. The reality is, in banking, you don't necessarily need as much space as you used to, so, we looked at this as an opportunity not to have a significant change, but to evolve our footprint a little bit. That allows us to save some money to give more back to our members. It made a lot of sense in that regard. But we're thrilled to continue to be part of the Hastings community and to be the only credit union in this community. Hopefully, we will continue to evolve. The most common way that we grow is our members tell their friends and family about us. And hopefully, that will continue to ring true here as well. So, again, on behalf of our board of directors, our 250,000 plus members, our 600 employees across the state of Minnesota, we're thrilled to be here and kind of have a refurbished new location here in Hastings, Minnesota,” Larson said in his welcome statement.

Affinity Plus is a member-owned cooperative offering a wide variety of financial services from basic checking or savings accounts, loans and credit cards, to retirement and estate planning.