Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations.
This week, an unusual site where you can build vocabulary or other skills with a fun quiz, as you donate food to needy people worldwide.
"Free Rice is a website where people can go and donate rice for free to hungry people by answering multiple choice questions," says John Breen, founder of FreeRice.com. "For every question that they get right, we donate 20 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Program to hungry people all over the world."
The concept is pretty simple: You choose a subject, such as English vocabulary, math, geography or art. For every question you get right, 20 grains of rice are donated by sponsors, whose banner ads appear on the site.
Twenty grains of rice isn't much, but it has really added up over the 14 or so months since FreeRice.com was launched. "People have so far donated 56 billion grains of rice, and that's about 1,000 metric tons."
Breen says the dual purpose of FreeRice.com - donating food to the needy, plus improving your vocabulary - appeals to people all over.
"We have a lot of people in China, a lot of people throughout Asia, in Africa, South America, everywhere," says Breen. "Either people who speak English as a first language or are learning it as a second language or just want to improve their English use Free Rice. So it's really nice because they're feeding people at the same time, and they really like that, and they really like learning the English. So it kind of does a double purpose."
Try it yourself at FreeRice.com, or get the link to this and more than 200 other Websites of the Week, from our site, voanews.com.
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