A Useful Website

You hear about web sites all the time…in some cases they have replaced phone numbers as the way to contact a company or business. Many web sites are ones we use for entertainment and some provide useful information. Free Rice.com is one that is entertaining, informative and more than that helping with one of the biggest problems in the world today…feeding the hungry.

Free Rice.com is actually an on-line game that was created by a computer programmer from Indiana to help his son improve his vocabulary for the SAT. John Breen is also an anti-poverty activist who wanted to use his game to make people aware of the world-wide problems of feeding the hungry.

How it works is that when you go on the site you are greeted with a word and four choices of what is the correct definition. If you make the correct pick than the cash equivalent of 20 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program with the rice paid for by advertisers on the site. There is a database of thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty and more words are being added. As you make correct answers then you get harder words and levels…there are 55 but rarely does anyone get above level 48. The idea is that people, especially teenagers will come across words they’ve never seen and by playing the game improve their vocabulary which should help them when they take the SAT. Truthfully the game is a help to anyone looking to improve their ability to speak, read, comprehend and communicate.

FreeRice.com only began this past October and has been a huge success, attracting about half a million visitors each day. Players have helped donate more than 20 billion grains of rice, which is enough to feed almost a million people for one day. The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program, the world’s largest food aid agency and one that works with over 1000 other organizations in over 75 countries.

So why not challenge yourself by checking out this site and playing the game which helps you and others. Here’s an example:

The word is determinate and the choices are fixed, bright, drowsy or tricky.
If you said tricky you are correct and 20 grains of rice were just donated.
FreeRice.com…a web site and game that makes a difference.