Genoa students fight world hunger one grain at a time

GENOA, Neb. - Twin River School students in Genoa are making a global impact, one question at a time. By participating in freerice.com, these students are answering questions on a variety of subjects, from psychology to music, and in turn, helping to feed millions around the world.

For every correct answer, 10 grains of rice are donated to those in need. Twin River High School Social Studies Instructor Ryan Sidwell explained,

"The kids didn't think ten grains of rice was much at first, but as they nailed 100,000 questions, they watched their impact grow. Now they're closing in on an incredible 1.1 million grains of rice donated!"

Sidwell added that this equates to roughly 150 pounds of rice, a weight that resonates with his seventh and eighth-grade students.

The freerice.com program was initially created in 2007 by American computer programmer John Breen as a tool to help students prepare for college entrance exams while giving back to local charities. In 2009, the United Nations adopted the program, which then grew with the support of corporate sponsors like Citigroup and Liberty Mutual.

"Every day, roughly around 30 to 50 million grains of rice are donated through this website globally," said Sidwell. "That's impressive."

Out of 135 students in Sidwell's group and over 130,000 groups worldwide, Twin River High School students rank in the top 1 percent of high performers.

Sidwell hopes other schools will join the effort. "I want this to be picked up by some of the larger schools in Columbus, Norfolk, and Grand Island, where we can have large groups of people putting up more donations because the need globally is unimaginable," he said. "This is a system that's very easy to put in, and anyone can go to freerice.com to get started."