Perceptive readers will notice that we have been running a water charity ad in our main header for a while now, which harks back to our original site when we had a permanent charity ad in prime position to help feed the hungry. So it’s nice to report on a new initiative to help the world’s hungry.

The Freerice site lets you play a vocabulary game online in order to ‘win’ grains of rice which will be donated directly to the UN World Food Programme. The rice is paid for by a selection of advertiser sponsors, and the whole project is actually based at the UN in Italy. The game is pretty basic, just a word understanding theme, but it also sharpens your vocab as you play, which is pretty cool.

Unfortunately you’ll need to play *a lot* to even win enough rice to feed one person for a day (19,000 grains), but every little helps, as they say, and if enough people play now and then, it could make a difference. Better than Solitaire anyway, even if it’s harder on the brain.