Jenn Cloud, 25, entered a contest in July and won a new job for a year.

Cloud is the newest 'Young and Free' spokesperson for Vantage Credit Union. For a year, Cloud will reach out to young people in the St. Louis area through a variety of ways to tell them more about the services of credit unions.

Cloud grew up in St. Charles and graduated from Living Word Christian High School in 2004. She earned a degree in Communications from Missouri Baptist University in 2008.

St. Charles Patch: What is the ‘Young and Free’ spokesperson?

Jenn Cloud: The ‘Young and Free’ spokesperson works for Vantage Credit Union here in St. Louis. Basically the program was started by a company out of Canada to help reach 18-25 year olds to help them get information on credit unions and hopefully boost membership in those age groups. Vantage Credit Union linked up with them and set up a spokesperson that has to be in that 18-25 age bracket to represent the company to that age group.

St. Charles Patch: How did you get that postion?

Jenn Cloud: There was a whole competition. They started recruiting in June and the deadline for submission of entry was July 2. I decided the weekend it was due that I was going to enter.

So I woke up Saturday morning and got to putting the video together. You had to submit a one-minute video describing why you’d be good for the job. You had to script, act, edit and upload the whole thing yourself.

Once all the videos submissions were in, they had a general orientation and a group meeting for all the people that submitted application and they narrowed it down to three finalists. Then the three finalists competed for another two weeks getting votes from people in St. Louis, basically doing a trial-run of the job.

We had to produce another three-minute video and write four blog entries. Just kind of showcase our work. After that they announced the winner. So it’s been a six-week competition.

St. Charles Patch: Why do you think you stood out above the others?

Jenn Cloud: I think the edge that I had was that I’ve actually been working in marketing for three years now. Basically right after I graduated college, I’ve been working in my field. I have a background in marketing and specifically using social media in marketing. Also, I just love Vantage. I made my account with them when I was 16 and I really enjoy banking with them.

St. Charles Patch: So is this your actual job?

Jenn Cloud: This is my full-time job. Day-to-day, it’ll be planning, reaching out to people on Twitter and Facebook and building a community there. I’m going to be running contests. I’ll be going to events, like speaking at high schools, career fairs and stuff that people are having at colleges, if there are parades I can enter the car there.

You get a salary, but they also give you the company car. They let you use it for the entire year and they want you to drive the crap out of it because every time you’re driving it, you’re advertising. Gas is paid for the whole year. They gave me a new iPhone, which is paid for the whole year.

I also got a new Macbook Pro, on which I can do all my editing. I have all the software and everything I need to do the video editing. They also gave me a new video camera, which is really nice. It’s a nice Canon video camera. So I have all the tools provided that I’ll need to do my job, and I’m taken care of in a lot of other ways. I get health benefits, too. It’s an amazing situation to be in. I’m really, really excited.

St. Charles Patch: What are your responsibilities as the ‘Young and Free’ spokesperson?

Jenn Cloud: So what I do is I attend events, organize events, blog, Facebook, Twitter and also post videos once a week. It’s a pretty rigorous schedule. It’s just putting out media and generally being interesting.

St. Charles Patch: What are your plans for after your year as the ‘Young and Free’ spokesperson is up?

Jenn Cloud: I am really excited just to see what doors will open because of this. The possibility of starting my own business after this, because I’ll be almost a five-year professional with a lot of experience. If there’s an opportunity with Vantage itself, it would be an honor to check that out. I don’t really know, I’m excited to see where it goes.

St. Charles Patch: What are you passionate about? What is your message to young people?

Jenn Cloud: I have a few things. We’re coming up on an election year, and so I really want to get young people engaged and to care about things they don’t naturally care about as they’re going into college and they have a lot of other stuff on their mind.

We’re in a really interesting time with the recession and the way that finances have been hit for young people. A lot of people getting out of college are moving back in with their parents, they’re having to save up money, they’re still waiting table because there aren’t a lot of professional jobs available. Right now I think it’s really important for us to figure out why money if the way it is and what we’re supposed to be doing with our money and how we can do it better.

St. Charles Patch: What do you like about living in St. Charles?

Jenn Cloud: I like the old part of St. Charles because there’s a lot more personality out here. It’s a little bit more diverse. I mean, there is an Applebees, but in this area, there are a lot of independent restaurants and businesses, and the historical quality of it is just awesome. I love it out here.

My husband and I made a compromise. He wanted to move further out West and I wanted to move into the city, because I like the personality of the city. We realized that we’ve got Old Town St. Charles, so he can be happy being in suburbia still, and I can be happy because there’s a little bit of urban flavor mixed in.

St. Charles Patch: What do you like to do in your free time?

Jenn Cloud: Well, this is where it gets difficult. In my free time, I do a lot of the stuff I do for work. I’ve built up my own Twitter community, and I love just tweeting and interacting with people there, which is also what I do for work. So sometimes I’m having to sort it out and do something deliberately different to unplug. I’m trying to teach myself to do that now so I don’t get burnt out. I also crochet, my grandma taught me how to crochet. So last year I set up an Etsy shop. I enjoy reading and also just hanging out with my husband. We’ve been married four and a half years.