Small Acts: Free Rice

I don't usually post this sort of thing, but an email from my friend Trish with the subject heading "Free Rice" came into my inbox the other day. I checked it out pretty carefully and it is not a hoax, but a Real Thing, so I wanted to pass it on. Here's the Email:

Here is a site I hope you will check out. http://www.freerice.com/index.php
It is a fun vocab game and a great cause. For each word you get right
while playing 20 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations
World Food Program. 20 may not seem like a lot, but it adds up
quick. I just played for about 5 minutes and accumulated 500
grains of rice. Have fun and pass it on. --Trish


Now 20 grains isn't much...it takes about 700 grains to make one Tablespoon, based on long grain organic brown rice (go ahead, ask me how I know...) and 5600 to make 1/2 cup. BUT 1/2 cup of rice cooks up to about 1 1/2 cup, about a meal for a child, and points add up quickly. The game is FREE, lots of fun, and kind of addictive. And you get something out of it too. (A painless way to study for SAT and GRE tests and improve your reading ability.) When you think about how much time you probably spend playing solitaire or mahjong on computer, this seems like a useful alternative.