Through FreeRice.com, a new non-profit web site, individuals can help provide much-needed rice to hungry people throughout the world. In addition, the FreeRice program offers something other hunger aid web sites do not: It improves and strengthens the personal vocabulary of its visitors.

The concept is both simple and innovative. The site asks its visitors to select a synonym for a word on the screen. When a visitor gives three correct synonyms in a row he or she moves up one level. If an incorrect synonym is given the player moves down one level.

Thus through a series of questions and answers, a visitor is placed within one of 50 different vocabulary levels. The more one plays the game, the more new and challenging words one is exposed to.

So how does the game benefit the hungry? That is where corporate advertisers come in. Each time you answer a question correctly an advertisement appears at the bottom of the screen. These advertisers pay FreeRice.com for the exposure they gain on the site.

Each time an ad is run on the screen, FreeRice uses the proceeds from the advertiser to purchase and donate more rice to those who need it. In the end, every correct vocabulary question you answer generates 20 grains of rice for people in need.

Dozens of advertisers support the FreeRice program, including such companies as Hewlett-Packard, Windows Live, American Express, Orbitz and Fujitsu, to name a few.

The site started with 800 grains of rice when it was founded in October 2007 by John Breen, an Indiana computer programmer. According to Bettina Luescher, Chief North America spokesperson for the United Nations’ World Food Programme, which supplies and distributes the rice, the site’s popularity and success have been increasing ever since.

“We are extremely happy recipients of John’s amazing idea,” Luescher says.

Luescher states that between 500,000 and 1 million people use the site per day. Everyone from high school teachers to office workers to elementary school children has expressed interest in the site and the FreeRice program. There are currently over 500 Facebook groups that link to the FreeRice site.

FreeRice is so popular, in fact, that in November 2007 the amount of rice donated per vocabulary question answered was increased from 10 to 20 grains.

Luescher believes that this popularity has come about because the site offers an immediate and hands-on way for people to contribute to the fight against poverty. The way she sees it, many people today are overwhelmed by the enormity of the hunger crisis.

“You try to show people, ‘Yes, you can do something. No, you’re not powerless,’” Luescher says.

While the United Nations estimates that it would take approximately $195 billion a year to end world hunger, the FreeRice program is making great strides toward achieving that goal. To date, approximately 15 billion grains of rice have been distributed to countries worldwide.

According to the World Food Programme’s web site, 15 percent of the FreeRice deliveries are made to the nation of Myanmar, with Nepal, Cambodia, the Philippines and other African and Asian countries receiving close to that amount as well.

FreeRice tries to purchase as much of its rice as possible from local farmers in the nations where the rice is donated. Luescher explains that by contributing to local economies, the FreeRice program hopes to have a long-term impact on ending hunger in these poor nations, not only for today, but for good.

Many hunger aid websites do exist today. Yet FreeRice.com is certainly unique among them. In directly benefiting both visitors to the site and recipients of the rice, as well as whole economies of poor villages and nations, the FreeRice program is making an inspiring impact, one grain at a time.

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