FREE RICE: Feeding the world through vocabulary

Repeated from last week since it is appropriate during Thanksgiving...and you can keep giving but keeping on playing.

I came across a site mentioned on BBC News website called "Free Rice." It is a slightly silly but addictive little thing that actually adds up to helping the UN feed people. Joy and I are obsessing on it yesterday and today.

Basically, they get money from advertisers. They have vocabulary words and you pick the correct defination...for each one you get right, they donate money for 10 grains of rice to feed people through the UN. So far Joy and I made it to Vocab Level 50 four times (though we always drop back down to 48 or so as we get some wrong) and have gotten more than 20,000 grains of rice....which feeds just one person for one day, but what the hell. It's fun in a nerdy way and if enough of us do it, it can have a real effect.

Here is what they have to say for themselves:

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.

FreeRice has two goals:

   1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.

   2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.

Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.

Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.

They began this October 7th, 2007 and already have 3.5 billion grains of rice donated (up from 1 billion just one week ago!). That adds up to enough rice to feed 175,000 people for one day.

Sponsors include Mac, Time/Life, iTunes, Radisson, and American Express, just to name a few.

Give it a try...it's addictive, you might learn something, and someone somewhere might get fed a bowl of rice.