November 21, 2007

Food for Thought

World Food Program’s Free Rice Word Game

In the ’90s, you Alt+F4ed your way out of trouble whenever el Jefe walked by. Now? Tabbed browsing has upped the ante — and your online Scrabble hustle has never been better.

Next up for smarty fingers: Freerice.org’s online vocabulary game. Take a crack at defining words like raiment and raillery. (Clothing and friendly banter: who knew?)

For each right answer, ten grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. After a few days, you’ll find yourself peppering your speech with words you hadn’t considered since the SAT.

Still in its infancy, the site has already generated more than a billion donated grains.

So while you’re swapping your Facebook head shot, The World Food Program is working with more than 1,000 organizations in more than 75 countries. And with hunger deaths numbering around 25,000 annually, that’s very important work.

Even you can appreciate that.

Available online at freerice.org.