By Zulay Reglado, 20, reporting from Miami on a site that makes a little wisdom work to fight world hunger
I am a lover of learning. I am also a proud lover of rice. Though technically opposites on the nourishment spectrum, together they can reach out to millions suffering from starvation across the world. All it takes for you to help is the click of a mouse and the will to pick up some knowledge in the process—and yes, for free.
FreeRice.com is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program and dedicated to stopping world hunger. The clever site runs like a game: It donates 10 grains of rice for every question a user—you—answers correctly. The questions range in difficulty, and subjects can be anything from grammar to science, math (a personal stay-away subject for me, but useful nevertheless), and random worldly trivia. Since its launch in 2007, Free Rice has donated more than 60 billion grains of rice to starving nations—that’s enough to feed several communities at a time. Anyone from a young child to a student avoiding homework to a grandparent can contribute to this cause, which makes the mission to stop world hunger more attainable than ever, thanks to the power of our knowledge. This is free education at its finest.
As of yesterday, I have donated 1,900 grains of rice, helped my niece master the proper uses of “among” and “between,” and learned that la pomme de terre is French for potato. Now, onto Chemistry.