[StBernard] NEW GAME//GOOD CAUSE

Westley Annis Westley at da-parish.com
Mon Jan 14 23:42:18 EST 2008


PLAY A GAME, AND SUPPORT A GREAT CAUSE!
THIS IS VALID--FOUND IT ON SNOPES.COM

WWW.FREERICE.COM



(Http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/freerice.asp
<http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/freerice.asp> )
Claim: Playing a word definition game at FreeRice.com results in
food being donated to the needy.

Status: True.

Origins: At FreeRice.com <http://www.freerice.com/> , you can
"donate" 20 grains of rice to the needy simply by choosing the right answer
to a word definition problem. (The promotion started out with rice being
donated in 10-grain increments, but this has subsequently been bumped up to
20.) Each correct answer results in another donation of


20 grains.

FreeRice.com is the creation of 49-year-old American computer
programmer John Breen, and is the sister site of Poverty.com, launched in
January 2007 with a counter showing one person dying of hunger every 3.5
seconds. Breen is no stranger to such programs, having created The Hunger
Site <http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/hungersite.asp> in June 1999.

As to who foots the bill for the food being donated, the site says:
"The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom
of your vocabulary screen." As more people play the game, the site racks up
more advertising revenue, which in turn is converted into food donations for
the hungry.

On 7 October 2007, the first day of the site's operations, only 830
grains were donated. As of 17 November 2007, the number of grains of rice
given away amounts to 2,457,120,420.

The rice is distributed by the United Nations' World Food Programme
(WFP <http://www.wfp.org/english/> ), an organization that in 2006 reached
87.8 million people in 78 countries.





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