A good idear.

So I may be late on this, but I was just turned on to what may be the most constructive site ever, freerice.com.

I’m a big fan of the Hunger Site, and its brethren, the Breast Cancer Site, the Child Health Site, the Literacy Site, the Rainforest Site, and the Animal Rescue Site. You know, you go to the site, which is covered in ads to support it, and you click on a big button that donates 1.1 cups of staple food to the hungry (or a mammogram, healthcare for children, some educational funding, protection for 11.4 square feet of rainforest, or .6 bowls of food to rescued animals). These sites are a great idea ! Freerice.com takes it to another level.

Freerice.com makes a game out of it. Human beings are naturally competitive, constantly trying to prove their skills, and freerice.com banks on that. Go to the site, and you’ll see a multiple choice vocabulary question (some of these words, for all three years I took Latin, are really quite hard !) – if you get it right, you donate 10 grains of rice to the hungry.

I know : 10 grains of rice really isn’t that much. But think of it as 10 points, and look at the bottom of the screen, and it keeps tabs on your vocabulary level. In the space of 5-10 minutes yesterday, I had donated 600 grains of rice. That, dear reader, is a lot. For those of us with boring desk jobs that have us on hold on the phone all day, we can do a lot of good.

Better still, if you get it wrong, they give you the correct answer, so you, the benefactor, can build your vocabulary and do even better the next time you engage in competitive philanthropy.