LEWISTON — Maine Family Federal Credit Union recently wrapped up a Free Rice Project with Farwell Elementary School.

The project consisted of a competition between two fifth-grade and two sixth-grade classes at the school. Children answered geography, math and grammar questions on the Web site, www.freerice.com. For every correct answer the students answered, 10 grains of rice were donated to the United Nations World Food Program, which is then distributed to a country in need.

Students did this as part of their classes, after they finished an assignment, during a break or at their homes. Students e-mailed their teachers on a weekly basis noting how many correct answers they attained.

The two fifth-grade classes donated 111,940 grains of rice and the two sixth-grade classes donated 189,210 grains of rice. The donated rice will help to feed a village in Africa for weeks. The winning sixth-grade classes received a pizza party.

“The kids have really run with (the project),” said Kristen Arbour, one of the sixth-grade teachers at Farwell. “It’s been exciting to watch,” she said. Matt Weber was the other sixth-grade teacher and Cathi Roberts-Morin and Andrew Bard were the fifth-grade teachers.


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