FreeRice.com

As I was sitting here playing on FreeRice.com trying to find inspiration for what to post about in the blog, I was motivated to share what a neat site FreeRice is. I'm not sure if most people already know about it, but as they market, "FreeRice has two goals: to provide education to everyone for free and to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free".

Here is how it works: (I borrowed the directions from their site to help best explain it to you)

"In the middle of the FreeRice Home page you will see something like:
small means:
little
old
big
yellow

To play the game, click on one of the four definitions ('little,' 'old,' 'big,' or 'yellow') that you think is correct. If you get it right, FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice to help end hunger. In the example above, you would want to click on 'little,' which means 'small.' You will then get a chance to do another word the same way. You can play as long as you like and donate as much rice as you like. When you are finished, you do not have to do anything―your donation is already counted."

The words/definitions start getting harder and harder and the levels go up and up until you get one wrong. When you miss a word, you go back down to an easier level but it takes getting three words in a row right to move on to a harder level.

I did some research into to make sure that it was a legit organization and found that the site is sponsored by advertisers which is how it works for "free". "The rice is paid for by the sponsors whose names appear on the bottom of the screen when you enter a correct answer; and all money raised by the site goes to the UN World Food Program to help feed the hungry. Sponsors make all payments to the UN World Food Program directly."

If you are curious or want more information check out http://www.freerice.com/faq.html.
And while you are there, give it a try - it's an addicting, fun way to help out other people (while helping yourself out too :]).

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it." -Albert Einstein