Grain game feeds hungry
Laura Prather
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: TruLife
A mere 10 grains of rice simultaneously can improve one person's vocabulary and another person's life.
John Breen, working with the United Nations World Food Program, created FreeRice.com, a Web site linking a vocabulary game with donations to the poorest and hungriest people on earth. Within one month of the site's launch on Oct. 7, more than one billion grains of rice had been donated to WFP - enough to feed more than 50,000 people for one day, according to WFP's Web site. Altogether, Free Rice players have donated more than 4.1 million grains of rice to date.
"I think it's been a surprise for all of us how it's caught on," spokeswoman for WFP Jennifer Parmelee said. "It gives people a chance to do something fun and actually educational, and at the same time make an actual contribution. It's a direct contribution to WFP with no strings attached."
The rules are simple: The game presents the player with one word and four possible synonyms. For each correct answer, 10 grains of rice are donated to WFP. At first visit, the program randomly generates several words of varying skill levels to determine a player's level of vocabulary and then appropriately adjusts.
As someone continues to answer correctly, the level of difficulty increases. There are 50 levels, but it is very rare for a person to reach the highest level. For three correct answers in a row, a player will move up one level, but one wrong answer and he or she falls back one level.
While playing the game, the browser displays logos of businesses and organizations at the bottom of the page. The logos change each time the page is refreshed.
"Whichever logo is on at the moment that you register an answer, that organization will contribute an inkling, or the equivalent dollar amount of [10 grains of rice]," Parmelee said.
At the end of the day, WFP receives a cash amount totaling the number of grains of rice donated through FreeRice.com, Parmelee said. So far, most of the donations have gone to help villages of Bangladesh that were affected by the typhoon, she said.
John Breen, working with the United Nations World Food Program, created FreeRice.com, a Web site linking a vocabulary game with donations to the poorest and hungriest people on earth. Within one month of the site's launch on Oct. 7, more than one billion grains of rice had been donated to WFP - enough to feed more than 50,000 people for one day, according to WFP's Web site. Altogether, Free Rice players have donated more than 4.1 million grains of rice to date.
"I think it's been a surprise for all of us how it's caught on," spokeswoman for WFP Jennifer Parmelee said. "It gives people a chance to do something fun and actually educational, and at the same time make an actual contribution. It's a direct contribution to WFP with no strings attached."
The rules are simple: The game presents the player with one word and four possible synonyms. For each correct answer, 10 grains of rice are donated to WFP. At first visit, the program randomly generates several words of varying skill levels to determine a player's level of vocabulary and then appropriately adjusts.
As someone continues to answer correctly, the level of difficulty increases. There are 50 levels, but it is very rare for a person to reach the highest level. For three correct answers in a row, a player will move up one level, but one wrong answer and he or she falls back one level.
While playing the game, the browser displays logos of businesses and organizations at the bottom of the page. The logos change each time the page is refreshed.
"Whichever logo is on at the moment that you register an answer, that organization will contribute an inkling, or the equivalent dollar amount of [10 grains of rice]," Parmelee said.
At the end of the day, WFP receives a cash amount totaling the number of grains of rice donated through FreeRice.com, Parmelee said. So far, most of the donations have gone to help villages of Bangladesh that were affected by the typhoon, she said.
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