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How to build your vocabulary – and feed the world
A charity website donates rice to the UN every time you choose the correct definition of a word.
By Caitlin Carpenter | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the December 3, 2007 edition
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It began as a way for John Breen to help his son prepare for the SAT. Today, some 500,000 people daily visit the vocabulary-quiz website the Indiana-based computer programmer set up. And while word-game fun is part of the draw, players get an extra jolt of "feel good" joy: Every time they get an answer right, they help combat world hunger.
Freerice.com, which debuted in October, donates 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program (WFP) every time a player selects the correct definition for a particular word. Paid for with advertising income, 4 billion grains have been won for the WFP so far. That's 160 metric tons, or enough to feed 200,000 people for one day.
"It's really caught fire," says Brenda Barton, a WFP spokeswoman. "More people visit our site from the link on Freerice.com than any other referral." It's the first site like this she's ever seen, she says. Given its success, however, no doubt copycats will crop up soon.
When Mr. Breen first thought to create a computer vocabulary game to help his son prepare for the SAT's verbal section, he almost immediately realized he could use it to help raise money for hunger as well. That's because this isn't Breen's first online philanthropy effort. In 1999, he created thehungersite.com. Visitors can "click to donate" a cup of food to an impoverished person. Sponsors pay for the food; visitors are limited to one donation per day. The site averages nearly 200,000 hits daily and has brought in $2.9 million for the WFP so far.
"We see an interest, especially among kids, in the issue of hunger," Ms. Barton says. "We need to talk to them at their level by using the Internet and video games. Freerice.com does that."
People from all walks of life and from around the globe have written in to express their appreciation for the game, she says. Secretaries admit to playing it during boring business meetings. "We get messages from fourth-graders saying, 'I really enjoyed playing this game in my English class. My teacher has organized a spelling bee using it.' "
The layout of the site is simple: The left side of the page has a word with four possible definitions below. When the user clicks on a definition, a new page loads and indicates whether the answer was correct. If the user was right, a graphic of a wooden bowl on the right side of the page fills with 20 grains of rice. (The average adult needs 18,000-20,000 grains of rice to eat for a day.) At press time, the site had received some 20 million hits.
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