As one of my Chinese friends pointed out to me, Free Rice dot Com seems to be the first site that offers Rice in exchange for playing their english word game.

How it works 
You play their english synonym game.  Everytime you get an answer correct, rice is donated free to third world countries.  20 grains of free rice will be donated to the United Nations World Food Program for each answer you get right. At the same time, this program also hopes to improve your english.

Is Free Rice real?
I was skeptical at first too, but with articles promoting the site from such sources as BBC News and  the Washington Post, Free Rice seems to be very credible.

I had my doubts after learning about websites that make money from donations.  One facebook application claimed that they would donate some 20 cents to breast cancer research for downloading a toolbar.  What this company didn’t tell you is that they receive $.80 for every toolbar downloaded.  With 1 million downloads, the company made some $800,000 and donated a mere $200,000.  With such schemes out there on the net, you can’t always be certain who is out for profit and who really tries to help those in need.

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