Free Rice
I saw this tidbit come across my Snopes.com rss feed, and had to check it out. It is an interesting concept, to say the least.
FreeRice.com is a website that went “live” on the 7th of October, 2007. The concept is that you play a word game that helps you to expand your vocabulary. When you guess a word’s meaning correctly, you “donate” 10 grains of rice to feed starving people. The rice is paid for by the sponsors whose advertisements appear in the banner underneath the word game. The rice is to be distributed through the United Nations World Food Programme.
OK, so what? What is 10 grains of rice going to do against the millions of people without adequate nutrition in the world? That would be my question. Well, since the website’s inception, the “grains” that have been donated are growing at a fantastic rate:
Total Donations by Day
| Date | Grains of Rice |
|---|---|
| 7 October 2007 | 830 |
| 8 October 2007 | 5,670 |
| 9 October 2007 | 76,020 |
| 10 October 2007 | 287,960 |
| 11 October 2007 | 4,584,100 |
| 12 October 2007 | 3,541,350 |
| 13 October 2007 | 3,194,630 |
| 14 October 2007 | 4,343,350 |
| 15 October 2007 | 6,403,920 |
| 16 October 2007 | 6,645,520 |
| 17 October 2007 | 12,157,010 |
| 18 October 2007 | 26,703,160 |
| 19 October 2007 | 40,373,060 |
| 20 October 2007 | 16,175,550 |
| 21 October 2007 | 13,276,900 |
| 22 October 2007 | 26,881,930 |
| 23 October 2007 | 30,423,770 |
| 24 October 2007 | 37,670,700 |
| 25 October 2007 | 30,819,620 |
| 26 October 2007 | 29,607,480 |
| 27 October 2007 | 37,056,070 |
| 28 October 2007 | 42,153,550 |
| 29 October 2007 | 48,720,340 |
| 30 October 2007 | 56,893,100 |
| 31 October 2007 | 59,167,790 |
| 1 November 2007 | 52,142,290 |
| 2 November 2007 | 45,925,390 |
| 3 November 2007 | 45,760,870 |
| 4 November 2007 | 48,038,530 |
| 5 November 2007 | 53,847,080 |
| 6 November 2007 | 73,566,480 |
| 7 November 2007 | 75,201,580 |
| 8 November 2007 | 77,126,310 |
| 9 November 2007 | 63,253,810 |
| 10 November 2007 | 122,377,240 |
| 11 November 2007 | 136,236,930 |
| 12 November 2007 | 188,987,290 |
| 13 November 2007 | 192,744,570 |
| 14 November 2007 | 184,681,920 |
| 15 November 2007 | 201,226,610 |
| 16 November 2007 | 198,342,510 |
| 17 November 2007 | 160,497,630 |
| 18 November 2007 | 170,885,620 |
| 19 November 2007 | 212,660,970 |
| ___________ | |
| 2,840,667,010 |
A quick search on the internet reveals that there are approximately 29,000 grains of long-grain rice per pound. 2,840,667,010 grains divided by 29,000 = almost 98,000 pounds of rice. Not bad.
So, go expand your vocabulary!
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November 21st, 2007 at 11:58 am
Wow. I’ve seen this game mentioned a few times but I didn’t realize that it was doing such a tremendous job of donating food. Wow.
On another, completely different planet, I’m randomishly tagging you for the NaBloPoMo seven things meme. Check out my blog site for the rules. If you decide to play, link to me in a post and then tag seven random NaBloPoMo bloggers.
And now I’m going to donate some rice and expand my vocabulary.