Learn new words, help feed the hungry

Yesterday CV posted about the growing demand for rice in the world, causing prices of the grain to skyrocket and certain companies to impose buying limits. In a crazy coincidence, last night on the way home from Taekwondo my daughter told me about this online computer game she and her friends have been playing, called Free Rice, in which they earn grains of rice for correctly matching vocabulary words, which are then donated to the hungry. (Um, the rice not the words, lol.) For each word guessed correctly, 20 grains of rice are donated to families in developing countries. She and her friends have collectively donated hundreds of thousands of grains of rice.

Upon hearing about this, I immediately questioned: what kind of macabre game is this, that someone is sitting on major stockpiles of rice and doling it out on the basis of middle schoolers guessing word definitions?? I raced home to the computer to find out.

Freerice.com is a non-profit game run by the U.N. World Food Program and is financed by advertisers. As you play the game, advertisements flash across the bottom of the screen. These advertisements pay for the purchasing of rice which is then distributed throughout the world. Since the game’s inception on October 7, 2007, 29,724,130,370 grains of rice have been donated.

Of course it would be nice if those advertisers simply donated money out of the goodness of their hearts, but that’s not the world we live in. And kids are actually brushing up on their vocabulary skills, which is never a bad thing. In fact, it’s not a bad thing for us, either. So if you’ve got some time to kill, head over there and test your vocab skills and help feed a hungry family at the same time.

http://www.freerice.com/

Warning: it’s addictive! Noelle is on vocabulary level 36, which has words like orbiculate and intumescence. Man these 8th graders are smart!