There is an old bromide that goes, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.  Teach him to use the Internet, and he’ll leave you alone for months.”  Actually, now there is a project that combines the best of both statements.

I saw this on the news last evening.  There is a website called Free Rice that links the interactivity of a web-based game with providing help for hungry people.  The game is a vocabulary-builder in which the player is given a word and several definition choices.  For each correct answer, grains of rice are donated through the World Food Programme.

The rest of the site gives information about hunger, where the rice comes from, who pays for it, and so on.

The sad reality in our world is that tens of thousands of people die every day from hunger and related health issues.  There is not an even distribution of food resources across the globe, and sometimes when food is donated to famine areas, it is intercepted and never reaches the intended recipients.

Free Rice is one attempt to address this urgent human need.  Give it a look, learn a few new words in the process, and help feed a starving brother or sister.