Teaching social responsibility has always been a priority at Calais. Students, too, love participating throughout the school year in a range of fundraising activities and making a difference in their local communities. 

This year, there’s a new initiative at Calais with a global perspective. It’s innovative, educational, international and manifests itself in the form of a digital trivia game called “Free Rice”. Chef Salaam introduced the Free Rice initiative to Calais this Fall with a bit of fun, friendly competition. While playing, students are brushing up on their academic knowledge in a range of categories, from science, geography, math to English, spelling, art, culture and more.

It can be played on a mobile device or laptop, as a team or as an individual. The objective of the game is to respond to as many questions as possible in over 60 academic categories and earn rice. Each correct answer generates 10 grains of rice. For each symbolic grain of rice, a donation is made to the World Food Program to combat some of the most urgent international food crises.

Students, staff and faculty, grouped in teams of three or more, compete by answering as many Free Rice questions as they can throughout the month. At the end of the month, each team’s rice totals are tallied and the winning team is awarded prizes and recognition. Team Reich/Terito/Nestle was the most recent winner, earning a grand total of 100,510 grains of rice. (There’s always next month for the rest of you.) Calais will be playing Free Rice throughout the year. 

Free Rice was the brainchild of computer programmer John Green back in 2007 when he developed a digital game to help his son study for the SATs. Two years later, he donated the technology to the World Food Program as a means of fighting hunger. Since then, schools, teams, organizations and individuals all over the world have been playing Free Rice, raising over 35,861,730 grains of rice to date. Calais is excited to join this collective effort and battle food insecurity worldwide.