It's worth looking into the fundamentals of each market and Jacksons are fairly good; quite diversified in terms of employment for a small city (hospitals, manufacturing, colleges etc.)

I am a fairly strong credit quality borrower and would be willing to have a deposit account with the bank.  

Please give advice so I can give this family a fair shake and hopefully a lot of cash for the holidays!

Seems fair.   

Also being ethical and fair, its the only way to stay in business.

I have a fairly specific demographic in mind going in.  

Currently I do not have the best credit (fair) and not so much extra cash.

Lot's of ways to skin the cat...just get creative...Good luck!

I am in the same field, and I got into real estate and think it works fairly well with education (if your job has some flexibility like mine)...I can recall spending like a hundred grueling hours fighting over half someone's deposit in the legal aid office and stalling the eviction an extra week or two on  technicalities (a noble cause for sure), but they still, of course, were evicted eventually with no money.

To possibly further muddy the waters, the owner did ask that I put some skin in the game by putting $50k down, paid directly down on the note.