Feel like trading the cash you saved for that Prada bag to combat poverty?

No? What if you only lent the money for a few months, then got it all back in time for your next shopping spree? You’re probably thinking, “That doesn’t sound like charity.” It is, but it ain’t. It’s better. It’s a system called Kiva.

Microcharity on a budget – you really can help!
Just because your main meal is ramen noodles doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference. There’s a new form of charity in town and it’s designed for students who want to help but live on a budget! You donate just a little, but help change a lot! And best of all, you can watch the story unfold as your money slowly makes its way back to you.

That’s right – your money comes back to you. In essence, Kiva.org allows you to take the place of a bank as a lender, then recoup your “losses” as the money you lent out gets paid back to you within months.

What is this?

This is a new process called microcredit. You may have heard about it recently. The Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2006, Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, earned the reward for globally applying his system of microcredit. Yunus constructed a way to successfully empower poor people by using his bank to secure microloans for people who would never traditionally qualify for them. By allowing these people to make small and irregular payments back to his institution, his system has become a standard for financing in the Third World.

Not only has it become a globally recognized system, but it has also become quite lucrative for banks and financial institutions to invest in! The best part is, anyone can participate!

What do I do to start microlending?

• You can visit kiva.org and have a look at people who need microloans. Perhaps pick someone whose interests or attitudes align with your own.

• Use the form on the site to send a loan using your credit card or a paypal account.

• Kiva.org directly transfers the funds you send to the local representative office of the business you choose.

• Over time, this revenue office collects small repayments from the entrepreneur you choose and sends you an update on their progress.

• When the microloan is paid back in full, the business person may apply for another with their updated microcredit rating and kiva.org gives your original money back to you electronically.

• You can withdraw your money and deposit it in your bank knowing you did your part, or you can keep the returned money in the holding account and shop for a new business to help!

How did this come to be?
Simply put – it was made possible by the advance of technology. The practice of microlending is now cost-effective due to the spread of cheap communication devices like cell phones and the internet. What used to be expensive and slow because charitable sponsorship traditionally relied on mail and courier services to do business, is now inexpensive and instantaneous. Lending is easier and more people are able to use the service. It’s a win-win situation for everyone!

How is this making a difference?
The World Bank estimates that there are now over 7000 microfinance institutions serving some 16 million poor people in developing countries. The total cash turnover of MFIs world-wide is estimated at U.S. $2.5 billion and the potential for new growth is almost unlimited.

Who else is helping out?
Thousands of people. People like Lisa from Tennessee who’s helping a man from Kenya run a store. People like Janice who is helping 16 people make better lives, because she remembers when she needed a helping hand.

Do you work to pay for school? Why not get your work buddies involved? Get your work group to pick a person in need who is trying to build a business like yours. Companies like Beauty Schools Directory donated to 8 lucky ladies across the world who were trying to start salons and beauty stores of their own. All you need is a few bucks and a computer and you’re on your way.

Put the Prada on hold for a few months – you can pay it forward and feel great!

We here at Key Magazine will be heading out shortly for our holiday break, so we want to wish everyone Happy Holidays! There probably won’t be many updates on here till early next year, but check back then, because we have some cool things coming to the site next year.

In the meantime, check out our list of things to do while on your holiday break. This isn’t your standard holiday to-do list of shopping, eating, and sleeping. Try something different for a change…

1. Start your own blog. There are lots of free blog services out there, like Wordpress and Blogger.
2. Check out www.howstuffworks.com and impress your friends and family with your newfound knowledge.
3. Get a really difficult puzzle. Example - black and white photo mosaic. Check out the wide variety of puzzles here.
4. Go through your stuff and find things to sell on ebay. Decrease clutter and make money!
5. Give something back - contact your local soup kitchen or shelter and donate food or help serve food. Spread some holiday love to the less fortunate.

Or, if none of that interests you and you just want to kill time, grab a “National Geographic” and draw underwear on the natives. But please, find your own copy. The school library might not appreciate your “art” as much as you do.

When you’re a college student, winter break can be almost a month long. Returning home for such a long stretch of time can be an adjustment for the entire family. Parents may want their kids back for a traditional family Christmas, while you are anxious to catch up with high school friends and explore their independence.

But your holidays really can be happy. Here are some tips on how to keep winter break as stress-free as possible:

• Loosely pre-plan your break so that your family and friends have the right expectations about who you want to see and what you want to do over the holidays. Ask your family ahead of time what their expectations are for you.
• Understand that your parents expect to spend time with you over the holidays. Don’t disregard your family just because you haven’t had a curfew for the past 3 months.
• Be honest with your parents if your grades from the past semester aren’t as good as they should be. Get their help and support early, before things get too bad.
• Ditto if you’re blowing through your budget and have opened 2 credit cards just to stay afloat.
• Discuss what the house rules have been in the past and how they could be changed now that you’ve been dictating your own schedule (curfew-free) for a semester. Your parents should give you a little slack, but don’t forget that you are back under their roof.
• If you have a younger sibling who has gotten used to getting his way since you’ve been gone, set guidelines for things that may need to be shared: vehicle, big-screen TV, chores, etc.
• As appealing as it might sound, don’t have your mom do all your laundry, make your bed and bring you ice cream while you’re playing video games. Assert your new independence.
• If you will not be able to return home because you don’t have a good relationship with your family, are too far away, or have experienced a recent tragedy, don’t give up on the holidays. Find a friend to stay with or start your own holiday traditions.
• Save some time to relax, rejuvenate and reflect on the past year. After all, it isn’t called “break” for nothing.

It was a crazy weekend here in Kansas City, with Mizzou and KU football teams facing off on the gridiron at Arrowhead Stadium. Both football teams had a surprisingly amazing season, and Saturday night’s game would more than likely determine the newest #1 ranked college football team in the BCS. And it did - after maintaining the lead through the entire game, the Missouri Tigers came out on top.

These two teams’ long-standing border war brought out an abundance of spirit in the Kansas City area. Alumni and current students alike flocked to the sports bars and even came out to tailgate at the game, despite not having tickets. I was actually present at the tailgaiting festivities while working on a fundraiser for a local charity, so I got to witness a lot of the “spirit” firsthand. Most of it was all in good fun, but there were the occasional razzings between KU and MU tailgaters that pushed the envelope. Luckily there was lots of security present to keep things under control.

Seeing everyone come out to support their alma maters in this huge, nationally televised sporting event, made me realize something that I missed out on in my college experience. I went to a large university, comparable in ungraduate enrollment to MU, however our athletics programs were not much of a draw for school spirit. Besides women’s basketball, we rarely had a noteworthy team in any of the major spectator sports. I think I may have attended only one football game, and that was freshman year homecoming. Going to any games was never a major function on our campus.

I watched everyone proudly sporting their team colors on their clothing, noted the various anti-Jayhawk or anti-Tiger paraphernalia dragging behind their vehicles, and listened unfamiliarly to their fight songs (I don’t even know if I would recognize my alma mater’s fight song!). I reminisced on my university experience, and while I had a great time, got a great education, and made some life-long friends, I feel like I missed out on something. But it was something I didn’t even take into consideration when choosing a school.

I guess the lesson here is to think of all the things you want out of a college education, not just the degree or the location. Think about the memories you will make during your extracurricular activities. And think beyond your undergraduate years on campus. Do you hope to be a proud alumnus supporting your school for years to come? Or are you content to get in and get out? While college can certainly be done over again (they will be glad to take your money a second time around), wouldn’t it be better to get your ideal experience the first time around?

I remember the spring semester of my senior year of high school. The scholarship awards banquets never seemed to end. I also remember my friend Andy saying to me after the last banquet, “Geez. They should have just called these all ‘The Cara Awards.’”

Yes, it’s true I was a good student, but that’s not what got my name called so many times. It was my determination.

I spent a lot of hours after school meeting with my counselor to find all of the scholarship opportunities offered by local businesses. I spent many hours in the evenings applying for these local opportunities. I fit it in between studying and filling out college applications. And not many other kids did. That made my competition a lot smaller, which in turn made my combined rewards a lot larger.

I didn’t win every local scholarship I applied for … but I did get about 80-90% of them. And all that extra work cut my potential college loans by half (if not more than half). My time invested into the local scholarship market was well worth it.

See, most high schoolers aim for the stars when it comes to scholarships. (Which isn’t an entirely bad thing.) You want the biggest scholarship out there, and so you pour all of your time and energy into applying for those.

Yes – it’s a great investment of your time. If you get the scholarship. But you know what? Investing time into small scholarships is well worth it, too! Even if they only sustain for 1 or 2 years, all of those added up can take a large chunk out of what you require for loans and make college much less expensive in the long run.

I actually ended up getting a pretty good academic scholarship to my first-choice school. But it was the smaller, local scholarships that made the biggest difference. By the time I was 5 years out of school, I already had my college loans paid off.

So, as you start applying for scholarship opportunities, leave no stone unturned. College is a huge and expensive investment. Every little bit of money you can get will help.

Learn more about scholarship opportunities.

It’s funny how your perspective changes throughout the stages of your life.

The other day my coworkers and I were chatting about our jobs and how we ended up here. Most of us are not in the profession that we would have predicted for ourselves. I was one of the few who actually got my Bachelor of Science in Business, which made sense here at an Advertising Agency. I then remembered something from my childhood that I shared with them. I found it quite humorous, and ironic at the same time.

In third through fifth grade, I attended a very small country school. In fact, it was so small, that all the grade levels studied together in the same room under one teacher. Seems unheard of these days…Anyhow - every Christmas we put on a program for our parents, and one year, we got to write it ourselves. We decided to make the theme around an elementary school reunion, where we would all come back together after twenty years.

We each got to design our “roles” around ourselves and what profession we dreamt of being. One of the kids became a farmer because that is what his father did and he assumed he would take over the farm. Another girl became a rock star. And I am almost embarrassed to say that I was a “beach concessionaire.” Seriously, my dream was to live in a tropical place, selling refreshments and souvenirs from a stand on the beach. The costume consisted of a swimsuit with tank-top, shorts, and flip-flops.

What an innocent mind I had back then to think one could make a decent living selling dacquiris and t-shirts on a beach. I doubt my parents would’ve been too pleased to put me through four years of college to end up doing that! But when I think about it seriously now, I see something much more profound in the “naive” thinking of my fourth-grade self. My dream was not about making six figures, climbing a corporate ladder, or living up to anyone else’s standards. It was about being happy.

While my current profession is about a thousand miles from being a beach concessionaire (literally and figuratively), one thing has held true - I am happy at my job! After changing my major three times in college, I finally found a degree program that I saw potential with. My business degree allowed me to learn about many different aspects of business, which opened up a wealth of career opportunities. In the end, I’ve been able to obtain a fabulous job at a great company where I look forward to going to work every day. It may not be a tropical beach, but I’m happy, which is the most important thing! I will just have to get my beach fix on vacation!

One of the big freshman fears going into college is, “What if it turns out to be the ‘wrong’ school for me?” After all the hassle of researching colleges, getting letters of recommendation, applying, weighing out the pros and cons, deciding on one, packing up more crap than you’ll ever need in your life, but somehow figuring you’ll need it and actually fitting it into a dorm room the size of a laundry hamper; the prospect of transferring colleges seems unbearable.

But it’s not unbearable; I went to 3 different schools for 3 totally different reasons, and I’d argue that each step along the way was a necessary one. There wasn’t anything wrong with the schools, but there was something wrong with how I viewed myself. It was incomplete, and each institution brought me closer to figuring out what I wanted and who I wanted to be.

Sure, the school transfer process can be frustrating, but it shouldn’t be paralyzing to the point that one is too afraid to exit their current situation. My biggest hump to get over was not the thought of starting from scratch, but the idea that I had “wasted” time and money. I suggest that students not view their time at other schools as a waste (If all you’ve done is party and establish a 0.5 GPA then, yeah, maybe). In hindsight, it’s easy to say that if I had to do it all over again I’d forgo the schools I attended before the last, but no, I wouldn’t have; that’s precisely why I took the path I did.

For some students, they’ll feel right at home from the get go, while others struggle. If you’re not happy, where you are transferring is not going to be your cure-all, but it might help. You can’t control everything in your college experience. The best you can do is to be wise about your money, talents, desires, and where they best fit together. After that you just have to go and live it.

I was one of those rare teenagers who actually loved my high school experience. I was always on the go. I was a member of the cheerleading squad, had a tight-knit group of fun friends, dated the cutest guys, and was on the Prom court. Yeah, I don’t blame you if you’re starting to gag a little.

Naively, when I headed off to college in the fall, I assumed that fitting in would be as easy as it had been in high school. I spent my freshman year making friends in my dorm, but when they all headed off to do their thing after classes, I watched re-runs of Boy Meets World from my twin bed and wondered what I was doing wrong.

What I was doing wrong was that I wasn’t doing anything. I had assumed that by being personable and hanging out with the girls on my floor on Friday nights, I would form a tight circle of friends. Turns out, finding your place on a 22,000-student campus actually is easy, but you can’t wait for an ideal college experience to come find you. You need to go explore and find where you want to be on your own.

Sophomore year, I got off my butt and made an effort. I went through recruitment week and joined a sorority. I scored a part-time job at a popular restaurant and served sandwiches with 20 other girls my age. I was a girl on the go again and I couldn’t have been happier.

Sure, committing to an activity, job or group means less time for sleeping in until noon. But becoming a part of something – anything – means that you’re not only carving yourself a place in a big campus, but that you’re adding structure to your college experience, which can greatly benefit your schedule and even your grades.

Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, a writer, a juggler, or an underwater basket-weaver, you should sign up for something in college. No matter what your interests and expectations are, you will benefit from being a part of a smaller group on a vast college campus.

You don’t want your most vivid college memories to be of your dorm room bedding and Boy Meets World, right?

South Park Mac vs. PC:
A parody of the Mac vs. PC commercials with South Park characters. Created as the final project for a multimedia production class at
California State University Northridge (CSUN).

Paxilback:
Gray Kid parody of Justin Timberlake’s Sexyback