A game where your mouse-clicks are a starving kid's food

[thatcrazycajun]

I found out abut FreeRice.com a couple months back. It's an online game where you match English words to their appropriate synonyms, and each correct answer results in 10 grains of rice donated to feed the hungry in developing nations; 100 grains fills a bowl. I thought it was (and is) a great idea, and it was even recreational for a word-geek like me; but I figured it would be very hard to make any real headway on the cause very quickly when each correct answer only buys 10 grains. Most people's patience would, I figured, probably run out after the first two or three bowls of rice were accumulated...particularly since the words get harder the longer you play.

But now this Reuters news story tells me that I underestimated the power—and word-geekiness—of the netroots. Over 77 million grains of rice were recently donated in one day alone! All told, they've already generated enough rice donations to feed 50,000 people. Amazing and moving, especially for people like me for whom fighting hunger is a pet cause.

So go play, already. It's absolutely free, it's fun, it's even educational...and you've never felt so good about wasting time playing a silly-assed Internet game.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I can play stupid vocabulary games forever when I'm too sick to do anything else, and feel like I'm being useful to somebody. (The only cost is to my pride, since I can't seem to get reliably past level 46.)

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're still getting higher than I have so far... Always glad to be of service to my invalided friends.

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

This is a fun waste of timegame and I am glad to know that it does help people.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]