If you’re the type who loves general knowledge, and wants to make the world a better place than it was yesterday, then have I got news for you!
You can do both, right now, without even so much as glancing in the direction of your wallet.
How?
Through Freerice, of course!
Freerice is a free, web-based educational game, where every question you get right donates about 10 grains of rice, at no cost to you, to the World Food Programme (WFP). It combines social awareness with gamification, in a way that just makes you want to fill a bowl or two, or ten, before you get back to your daily life.
You can experience Freerice for yourself at: https://freerice.com!
Have I piqued your curiosity? Keep reading to learn more about how you can help those in need, while testing your smarts!
My experience with Freerice
Allow me to indulge you in a bit of a brief backstory.
While Freerice originally launched as early as 2007, I didn’t discover it until 7 years later, in 2014.
Back in those days, I had been a student in a computer class, and was referred to Freerice by my instructor as a class-accepted downtime activity.
Ever since, I was inspired by the cause, and played Freerice off and on through the years.
It had gotten to the point where I would try to challenge myself to donate at least 1,000 grains of rice when I played, and to try to play as frequently as I possibly could.
Needless to say, Freerice had made quite the impression on me.
So when I dicovered today that Freerice had been up and running, I just couldn’t wait to people about it!
And thus, this post was born.
So, how does it work?
The process is simple!
On Freerice, you’ll be asked a question, and are given four possible answers to choose from.
When you answer a question correctly, an ad appears on the screen, and the advertiser donates the cash equivalent to 10 grains of rice, when the ads are displayed. Successive correct answers will make the game harder.
Should you get a question wrong, the paying advertisements will not display, and thus, no money is generated from that click. Getting multiple answers wrong will reduce your difficulty.
The more correct answers you click, the more often ads are displayed to your device, and in turn, the more rice you wind up donating!
But I can hear it from here…
“Ugh. Ads? Seriously?”
Yes, however, these aren’t the annoying ads you may be used to encountering on your typical foray into the World Wide Web.
These are small, unobtrusive, panel ads. They don’t do anything screwy to your browser/device, and don’t cover large portions of the screen. In fact, I’d say they cover less than 30% of the screen. On a mobile device, it looks to be less than 10% of the screen!
But, the important thing to remember, is that just by playing along on the site, you’re contributing to a greater cause. You’re helping families to put a meal on the table, where they otherwise could not by themselves. You’re helping real people to live better lives, by just doing something fun and educational.
So, while you get to test your knowledge, you’ll also be indirectly donating food and funding relief efforts to those who need it through the World Food Programme! Isn’t that alone worth it?
Is English vocabulary the only mode?
No, not at all! In fact, there are 7 main categories of the game:
- Global Goals: Using Facts to Fuel Action
- English
- Geography
- Humanities
- Language Learning
- Math
- Science
As you may have guessed, these subjects are more scholarly in nature, so students of any kind are strongly encouraged to play during their downtime.
If you aren’t a student, don’t worry, there are still other ways to make Freerice more enjoyable. You can Practice your foreign language skills in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Latin, or Czech, test your knowledge on world landmarks, capitals and flags, or challenge your mind in some multiplication!
You can even learn about the United Nations’ Global Goals, and still contribute to their efforts at the same time!
There’s a little something for almost everybody, so check it out and see how much rice you can donate!
Does it only donate rice?
Put simply, no. While the WFP has projects relating to ending hunger, and freerice generates the money equivalent to at least 10 grains of rice an ad, rice is only one part of a myriad of efforts by the WFP.
From the freerice beta site’s about page,
“WFP doesn’t use the funds raised via Freerice to only purchase rice. Instead, money raised via Freerice funds a variety of WFP projects around the world, depending on where needs are greatest.”
And the WFP does work in a lot of other surprising ways, too. Not only does the WFP provide food directly for those who need it, the WFP is involved in emergency response, humanitarian services, and country-specific resilience building, along with other types of support.
What about returning players?
If you’ve been playing Freerice from before the beta version was made, while your old rice total is saved, the new and old rice totals on the beta version are entirely separate.
In other words, all users on the beta version of Freerice will begin with 0 grains of rice.
But your old efforts were neither forgotten, nor in vain!
By filling out the Freerice Account Migration form, the Freerice team promises to add your old rice totals to your beta profile under “legacy rice”, while also giving returning players a special legacy avatar later on.
But this will not be an automatic process. You will have to manually complete the process by filling out the form!
Is it a scam?
No, from what I can tell, Freerice is far from being a scam, even if it does sound a little too good to be true.
Knowing what I know about how ads work, everything checks out.
Without getting too technical, when you answer a question correctly, an ad pops up on the screen, and creates an “impression” by doing so.
Through these impressions, users generate the money that advertisers pay out to the World Food Programme.
And because Freerice has so many active users, the ads’ pay even more for freerice’s traffic.
But don’t just take my word for it; Snopes, a site dedicated to discerning the truth from a tangled web of internet lies, has determined Freerice’s central claim is true.
So rest easy that your efforts are truly going to help those in need, and aren’t lining the pockets of a deceiving trickster.
Conclusion
Hopefully, I’ve covered Freerice in enough detail to the point it’s clear what it is.
One of the best things about it, is that it’s super easy to play, and that everyone who plays it can contribute to a global impact.
But why just stop here? At the very least, I want everyone who reads this to check out Freerice for themselves.
If you find yourself just casually on your phone, looking for the next thing to do, or idly waiting on your next appointment, I ask you, please, spend a few minutes of your time on Freerice, and help the WFP to feed the hungry.
And if you want to take it a step further? Feel free to join our Freerice group! By entering the group code of J7HXGGGT on Freerice, you can join The Candid Gamer Freerice Club!
While the group is fairly new, beating my rice score is strongly encouraged!
Who knows? With all of everyone’s combined efforts, we may even be able to help the WFP meet their goal of Zero Hunger by 2030!
So what are you waiting for? Let’s get out there and donate some rice!