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"You can&amp;#039;t get your child off the computer because she&amp;#039;s studying and helping to end world hunger? Believe it or not, that describes a hot new trend on the Web: FreeRice. This online quiz for kids 8 and up launched last year as a vocab builder with a charitable twist: For each correct word match, sponsors donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations&amp;#039; World Food Program. At press time, FreeRice had raised over 44 billion grains \u2014 enough to feed more than two million people for a day. With thousands of fans on Facebook and competitions countrywide, the site now includes questions on artists, world capitals, and chemistry symbols, too. If your kid&amp;#039;s not yet a regular. ask her to try her skill \u2014 and spark a lifelong habit of learning and giving. Founder John Breen, computer whiz and philanthropist, spoke to Good Housekeeping about the success of FreeRice. What inspired you to come up with such a unique concept? I was trying to find a way for ordinary people to help end hunger besides donating money to their favorite charity. At the same time, I was trying to think of a fun way to help my two teenage sons improve their vocabulary. So I decided to combine the two ideas.  Why do you think people love playing it? Well, most people think the game is fun to play. But more importantly, I think people really want to help end hunger. This is especially true of the kids who play FreeRice. I think they understand what it is like to be hungry and want to help as much as they can. It is really heartening to know there&amp;#039;s a huge hidden population of people who are willing to do something each day to help other people. You must get a ton of fan email. What&amp;#039;s been the best feedback you&amp;#039;ve received so far? I think my favorite is the teacher who wrote in from an Indian reservation saying how much joy it brought her to see 25 students on FreeRice who were actually enjoying learning vocabulary! In general people have been overwhelmingly positive and supportive of the site. I always thank them because ultimately they are the ones who make FreeRice successful! Have you traveled to any of the countries that have benefited from FreeRice&amp;#039;s donations, like Uganda or Cambodia? Not yet, although some day I would like to. Right now I am too busy running the site.  This summer, FreeRice expanded to include questions on subjects like math, geography, art, and foreign languages. So far, what&amp;#039;s the most popular subject, besides vocabulary? What is your personal favorite, and your kids&amp;#039; personal favorites?  Surprisingly, the Multiplication Table has proven to be very popular. A lot of kids are learning and practicing their multiplication skills on FreeRice. My personal favorite is Famous Paintings, where you&amp;#039;re shown a painting and then have to identify it as a Van Gogh or Monet or whoever. I have learned quite a bit about art history from it. My kids probably still like the original vocabulary the best. Your two sons help you with the site. What are their main duties? My 16-year-old son, Ben, is a good artist and helped me design the new subjects. My 14-year-old son, Casey, helped with the content for the new subjects, including the math and geography. Besides this, they both give me a lot of feedback about ways to make the site better. School teams across the country have organized FreeRice competitions. Have you or your family participated in any of these? No, but they&amp;#039;re great! I think the way that both teachers and students have become involved in helping the hungry through FreeRice says something really good about American values and our educational system. Next: Breen on his family and life before FreeRice  What did you do professionally before launching FreeRice and Poverty.com in 2007? I have been a computer programmer for over 30 years now, pretty much my entire career. I took a small break in the 1990s to create five volumes of the Who&amp;#039;s Who of Animals, later made into the books Who&amp;#039;s Who of Dogs and Who&amp;#039;s Who of Cats. These were tongue-in-cheek Who&amp;#039;s Who books where people would write in grandiose biographies of their pets. It was a lot of fun to do. Other than your own sites, what are your favorite Websites? What Websites do you read every day? Actually, I don&amp;#039;t spend that much time on the Internet. Maybe this is because I am a computer programmer, so I spend enough time on a computer as it is! I get news and sports from the Internet, do a little shopping, and definitely use it to look up things, as usually anything you want to know is there somewhere. What Websites do you encourage your kids to go to? When my kids were younger, my wife and I would keep a close eye on what sites they visited. But now that they are 16 and 14, we trust them to make their own decisions about the Internet and in most other areas. They do a lot of schoolwork online. Do you set limits on how long your kids can play at the computer? Why or why not? For years we put a limit of three hours per week of computer or video games. We just thought that our kids would get more out of their childhood if they spent more time playing sports or reading books. Now that they are teenagers, we don&amp;#039;t have any limit, but they are busy enough with high school and everything else that it&amp;#039;s not really a problem. What&amp;#039;s your favorite family tradition during the holiday season?  Well, we always like to get our dog some enormous present \u2014 a huge bone or oversized tennis ball or something like that. The dog usually looks at us like we have lost our minds, but we all get a kick out of it. Other than that, I think we see the holiday season as a time for family. We enjoy the whole process of getting gifts for each other and then spending a relaxing day opening them and being with each other. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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