Freerice facts for kids
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Type of site
|
Click-to-donate site |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Rome, Italy |
| Owner | World Food Programme |
| Created by | John Breen |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | 2007 |
| Current status | Active |
Freerice is a fun online game where you can help people in need just by playing! It's a quiz game that lets you donate rice to families in countries that are still growing and need help. For every question you answer correctly, ten grains of rice are given through the United Nations World Food Programme. This organization works to fight hunger around the world.
There are over 50 different topics you can play, like English words, multiplication, learning German, flags from different countries, and famous World Heritage Sites. You can choose from up to five difficulty levels, from super easy to really hard, depending on the subject. As you play, your total score shows up as a pile of rice and the number of grains you've earned.
Contents
How Freerice Started
The Freerice website first went online on October 7, 2007. On that very first day, 830 grains of rice were donated! A computer programmer named John Breen created the site. He made it to help his son study for the SAT exam, which is a big test for college.
At first, the website's name was "FreeRice" with a capital 'R'. On November 20, 2007, the World Food Programme (WFP) started a special campaign. They encouraged people to play the game during a busy online shopping time to help those who were hungry. For a short while, you could earn 20 grains of rice for each correct answer. But after a few months, it went back to 10 grains per answer.
In March 2009, John Breen gave the Freerice website to the World Food Programme. This meant the WFP became the official owner and manager of the game.
New Versions of Freerice
In September 2010, the UN World Food Programme launched a brand new version of the game. This update added cool features like social networking, where you could play with friends, join groups, see rankings, and earn achievements. When this new version came out, the name changed from "FreeRice" to "Freerice" with a lowercase 'r'.
Later, in August 2018, the UN World Food Programme released an even better version of the game. They also launched apps for phones and tablets, so you can play Freerice on your iOS or Android device.
How Freerice Helps
Freerice has made a huge difference! In its first ten months, players donated over 42 billion grains of rice. Just one month after the game became super popular online, users had earned enough points for one billion grains of rice.
The United Nations' World Food Programme explained that one billion grains of rice could feed 50,000 people for one day. This is because it takes about 400 grams (or about 19,200 grains) of rice to feed one adult for a day. Based on this, enough rice was donated in 2008 to feed over 6,000 people every single day of that year!
Since it started, up to April 3, 2013, Freerice players had earned enough rice for over 10 million meals. That's a lot of food for people who need it!
Awards and Recognition
Freerice has won several awards for its great work and impact:
- Digital Communications Award 2011: It won for "Best Corporate Game."
- Time Magazine: It was named one of the "50 Best Websites" in both 2008 and 2011.
- 15th Annual Webby Awards: It was recognized as an "Honoree."
- 2010 Parent's Choice Awards: It won in the "Online Learning" category.
- Yahoo! Pick of the Year 2007: It was the winner in the "Charity Category."
- Berkman Award: John Breen, the creator of Freerice.com, received this award on May 16, 2008. He was honored for his amazing contribution to how the internet helps society.
See also
In Spanish: FreeRice para niños
