Why did we start Buy Me A Coffee? To give you the full answer behind our story we will have to become transparent. This is something we didn't really want to do for personal reasons, but we saw a need, and we felt obligated to do what we can, so here we go
When we first arrived in Olon. It was a dream come true for us. We had a 5-year plan that due to the pandemic was shortened to just 2 years. That plan consisted of living in a small beachside community where it's warm all year round and we found it here in Olon Ecuador.
We had started both our Facebook group (Seeking Beaches and Sunset Adventures) as well as our YouTube (Seeking Beaches and Sunset Adventures) channel to showcase to our friends and family what our new life would be like. We did this prior to our arrival.
After we arrived and settled into our new home. We decided to spend the first few months just emerging ourselves into our new community, and learning everything about it that we could. What we discovered was truly amazing and life-changing for us. We discovered that a group of expats were trying to make a positive difference in this amazing community, and we wanted to do the same. But we didn't know how we could do this.
We sat down and talked. We had started a platform that was just sitting there idle, our YouTube channel, that if we worked at it can be monetized. Our plan was to create video content where we not only showcased our new life here in Ecuador but also showcase local businesses and the culture here as well. Our plan was once our channel was monetized. Funds from certain videos that we created would be donated to the cause that we showcased in the video where needed. As an example, funds will be going to feeding the seniors once a week, helping to supply the local food bank, the orphanage, environmental cleanup, gifts for the children for Christmas and more
We wanted to just do this quietly under the radar sort of thing, but our channel is taking longer to monetize than we anticipated and the programs listed above though run 100% by volunteers do cost money. Just this past week we received word that the local foodbank has 75 families on the waiting list due to a lack of funds which we didn't realize and we wanted to do what we can to help reduce these situations
YouTube requires us to get 1000 subscribers, and 4000 watch time hours. Our channel as of today Feb 13/22 is 18 weeks old and already we have achieved 500 subscribers 22,000 views and 2000 watch time hours. This is a huge accomplishment that we were able to achieve this milestone in such a short period of time, and it's all due to literally everyone around us as we are just the messengers. We are halfway to our goal
Though we realize that our channel will take time. We feel the need is greater than we anticipated so we have decided to open up our Buy Me A Coffee account with the intention of donating all funds that are donated (minus the 5% fee charged by By Me A Coffee) to causes that are in need. This gives us a means of raising these funds today instead of waiting until our channel is monetized. We will also be 100% transparent with these funds on our social media accounts.
We would also like to encourage other YouTuber channels to do the same as well for your community. If it wasn't for this beautiful country that we live in, and the people in it. We wouldn't be able to do what we do and have the life we now enjoy. What better way to say thank you, than to give back
We would like to say thank you to everyone for following our journey and also giving us a voice to be able to help out like this where we can. If you are unable to donate but would still like to help. Please head over to our Youtube channel and subscribe free of charge. Just subscribing to our channel and watching our videos will also help out greatly and each subscriber will bring us that much closure to where we can help out even more.
Thanks
Shane & Tonia