That’s it!

It was almost summertime and my friends Becki and Dave were craving an extraordinary summer. They were tired of going to the beach, developing a tan, shopping like crazy and all the other usual summertime escapades. Add to that, they were also tired of the scene here in the U.S.; they’d been to quite a lot of states already. They wanted to go to somewhere a little more off the beaten track.

Becki is Black American and she had been to most of the southern and central states. She said she, along with her family, went there to visit their relatives and friends. I wonder how many relatives she has in the whole of the States!

On the other hand, Dave, half Puerto Rican, has already traveled to almost all the states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Of course, he traveled together with his family by the time he went to all those places. He is the only child; so I guess they could afford all three of them going somewhere far away this year. He told me stories of how they went on caving, river rafting, skiing, rock climbing and motor crossing all those times. “Hey, you already tried motor crossing?” I was shocked knowing how young he was then. “Yeah dude! And, I was just 15 that time. You could only imagine how adventurous my family is. ” Oh well, I guess they really are adventurous.

“I’m planning to spend my next summer somewhere far away,” he declared one day.

“As if you haven’t gone far yet,” I said sarcastically. “So, how far is it gonna be this time? North Pole? South Pole?”

“Africa!”

"What?! Africa?!”

“You heard me right – Africa!”

“Well, you could do a lot of things there. My uncle, who used to be a teacher there, had a great time doing rafting, bungee jumping and quad biking. And oh, he said the safari was a wonderful and thrilling experience, too. You better try it.”

“I’m sure to do that, man. That’s the summer adventure I’m craving for.”

“So, is your family coming?”

“No. Dad’s busy with his business trip. Mom’s busy too.”

“So, who’s coming with you?”

“Becki.”

“Oh, so she has relatives there, too,” I said while laughing insanely.

“Actually, she has. That’s why we’re both going.”

“Oh, she really has a lot of relatives. Her family is amazing.”

“So, how about you? Are you going with us?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. My relatives from the Philippines are coming over. I’ll have to see them, so I’m staying. Besides, that’s gonna cost me too much.”

I paused for a while and said, “How are you gonna raise money, by the way? For sure, it's going to cost a packet”.

Dave paused for a while, as if thinking, and said, “Actually, that’s our problem. Becki and I are only 17 and we don’t have credit yet. My parent’s can hardly send me money, too. They used most of the money for my dad’s business trip.”

“Oh, that’s really a problem. If only you could raise your own money.”

“You’re right. We’ll just see if things will turn smoothly.”

Dave opened his video camera and smiled, as if he remembered something funny. “By the way, have you seen the video I posted in Facebook? That was really funny. It was about…”

“Hey,” I interrupted Dave, “that’s it!”

“What are you talking about?” He was startled.

“That’s it – Facebook,” I exclaimed. “You can raise money there. I remember when my sister and I raised funds for our favorite charity the other month. We were able to earn $ 1,000!”

“Wow, that’s cool! How did it happen?”

“I went to check my Facebook profile and there was this application called Coinjars. It’s like you have a jar in your Facebook account and then you load it with digital money called icoins. The face value of the coins in the jar is the same with the amount of money you loaded into to it. This means that you have to load the Coinjar with money via credit card, bank transfer or Paypal.”

“So, how did you earn money by just using the Coinjars?”

“Simple, we made a new Facebook page about our favorite charity that we were raising the funds for. We added the Coinjar application and we encouraged our relatives to give us donations. Through Coinjars, my relatives were able to send money from their Coinjars to ours. Then we had the iCoins converted to cash via paypal.”

“It’s so great. So, I can ask donations from my relatives in Puerto Rico?”

“Sure, so long as they have a Facebook account, they have added the Coinjars application, and they have iCoins in it, they can always send you money. Coinjars is the safest and fastest money transfer application within Facebook.

“So, do they have bank charges?”

“You wouldn’t believe this – the inter bank transactions are free of charge as long as the cash remains digital!”

Dave’s eyes glistened at the thought that he could raise money on his own.

“If you want to know more about this, just go to log on to Facebook.com, click applications and select Coinjars. You can also visit these two websites: http://icoins.blogspot.com and http://www.icoins.com”

“Wow, you have a pretty good memory!”

“I sure do! Let me write it down for you”

“Thank you so much, buddy,” Dave quickly stood and said, “I have to tell Becki about this. We need to check out this cool application!”

Dave dashed his way to Becki’s house and they started raising funds.

Two months later, I just learned they’re already in Africa having the summer of their lives.

Until now, Dave and Becki just keep on thanking me for Coinjars. I told them, “Don’t thank me, thank the makers of Coinjars – and you’re donors, too!”