Robert Stahowiak, of Warwick, installs an end panel to an enclosure surrounding the new safe-deposit boxes at the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket yesterday. As part of the museum’s fundraising campaign, the boxes will be rented to store family artifacts.

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The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

WOONSOCKET — Almost a century ago, a group of French Canadian immigrants formed the loan society that today is the $1-billion Navigant Credit Union. On Labor Day, the Museum of Work and Culture is hoping the same start-small strategy will help it increase its own financial resources.

Labor Day is always special for the museum, which is dedicated to telling the story of the mill and agricultural workers of the Blackstone Valley. Admission to the museum on Monday will be free from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The museum is using the day to unveil a new exhibit, called “Treasury of Life,” designed to celebrate the rise of local immigrant credit unions and spur preservation of family histories.

Financed with a $50,000 donation from Navigant Credit Union, the exhibit will feature a wall of safe-deposit boxes that will look like the inside of bank vault. It will include explanations of how immigrants banded together to loan each other money.

Navigant figures in that type of history. It traces it roots back to 1915 and La Credit Union de Notre Dame de Central Falls, an organization formed in the basement of the Notre Dame Church in Central Falls. In March of that year, a group of French Canadian mill workers, unable to persuade the local banks to loan them money, pooled their resources and formed the loan society to loan themselves money.

Part of the museum’s fundraising campaign is focused on the boxes. Museum Director Anne Conway said families can rent the boxes — they are functioning deposit boxes, with keys that can be given to those who use them — and use them to keep family mementos. Small boxes can be had for a $1,000 donation; a medium-size one for $5,000 and a large box for $10,000, she said.

So far, about 50 of the 250 boxes have been leased.

The plan is for families to use them to save things such as medals for military service, ration coupons, baptismal certificates or old report cards, things that might just clutter up a basement but could help tell the story of everyday life in Northern Rhode Island over the decades.

Besides the opening of the new exhibit, the Labor Day events include a photograph gallery exhibit called “A Walk Through American Communities,” with photos taken by David Amaral and Emilie Dubois. Visitors will also be able to tour the museum’s Catholic education section, including items from the Eugene Peloquin Catholic School Archive, and the Merci Box car — a post-World War II gift from the people of France to Rhode Island. A fundraising raffle will be held to give away a dinner for six at the Pillsbury House on Prospect Street.

The museum is at 42 South Main St., Woonsocket, at Market Square

jhill@projo.com