Eleventh Hour Challenge (Re-posted)

*1 out of 7 people tonight will go to bed hungry

* 1 out of every 4 children in developing countries are underweight

* Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger

(http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats)

There are steps we can take to try and make a difference in changing those statistics. However, for millions of lives, we are running out of time, we are in the eleventh hour. Therefore, the eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 2011 (11-11-11) is being designated to combat local and global hunger through what I’m calling my “Eleventh Hour Challenge.” Although that day is the official inspiration for the challenge, actions can be taken before, on and even after that day. This call to action incorporates new and old technologies - new and old ways of working together to help address hunger. Three specific actions are requested of you:

1) Donate non-perishable food items to your local food shelf and report your donation to the Team11 blog site. Any amount is appreciated, however my Eleventh hour recommended donation would be, of course, 11 items, $11 or 11 pounds :)

2) Donate rice for the United Nation’s World Food Program by playing for TEAM11 at Freerice.com (directions can be found below). Play for 11 minutes or to a minimum of 1100 or 11,000 grains of donated rice. (This is actually much easier than it sounds.)

3) Recruit 11 other people to repeat steps 1-3. Start recruiting people now and let's get this ball rolling (and keep it rolling)! To clarify: Each person is being challenged to do all three steps, which means that each person recruits at least 11 people. You completing step 3 (recruiting 11 people, who recruit 11 people, etc.) can have a larger ripple effect than you can imagine. Let's do the math: We start with 1 person recruiting 11, but if they recruit 11 then we are at 133 people (the originator, the first 11, and each of their 11). But if those new 11 recruit 11 new people we end up at 1464. So don't be scared to ask. The power of networking is limitless but only if we do all three steps including asking 11 people to help us out and in turn do the same. As those numbers grow, we are making a bigger difference by helping out more communities and more individuals in need.

Special note: Although ideally we want people playing on 11-11-2011, we want as many people playing as possible. So please start your recruiting as soon as you can. Team11 is already set up at freerice.com so you can get a jump start on donating too. However, if you were recruited on or after 11-11-2011, it's not too late. Participate anyway and let's keep this going and continue to make a change.

DIRECTIONS FOR HOW TO PLAY FOR TEAM11 at Freerice.com:

A. Go to www.freerice.com (or click here).

B. Create a username and password for your individual account (but play for our Eleventh hour group—keep reading below to learn how).

C. Once you have your username and password, go to “GROUPS” at the top of the free rice page. (PS if you already have a Freerice username/password you may use that but make sure to do the rest of the steps below to get counted as part of our group)

D. Under the group tab, search for “Team11” (no space between team and 11)

E. Click on Team11 when you find it.

F. From within that group hit “Play.” (MAKE SURE "Team11" displays above the wooden rice bowl. If not, you might not actually be in the Team11 group setting--so try the search again. There are a few glitches and it might kick you out every once in awhile depending on how many people are playing around the world, so keep your eye on that "Team11" label which is again viewable if you look just above the box with the wooden rice bowl.)

G. Select any of the categories and start answering the multiple-choice questions. Each correct answer adds 10 grains of rice to your total and TEAM11 total. This is why it is important to play through that group.

H. You can change question categories or reset levels if the questions get too hard. Just make sure you are still playing for Team11.

I. Recommendation: Play for at least 11 minutes, until you’ve reached 1100 grains of rice. However, you are strongly encouraged to do much more if you can. Make it fun--for example, challenge a friend to friendly competition—the one who earns the most has to buy you lunch.

Other Ideas:

· If you work with students, give extra credit to those who earn 1100 grains of rice or more that day or hold a school food drive that day and don’t forget to report your results at http://serviceforclc.blogspot.com/2011/10/eleventh-hour-team11-donation-record.html

· If you work at a business where this would be appropriate, designate 11 minutes for your workers to play Freerice.com for Team11. Or have one computer set up with a username/password for Team11 at freerice.com and have an 11 hour marathon at that computer to see how high your company’s/school’s tally can go

· Create your own Team11 event and post your event details/results/photos to the Eleventh Hour blog post at http://tinyurl.com/3dcdutb or the Team11 Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-11/309664979050482

· Tag your social media events with both of the following hashtags:

o #TEAM11

o #hungry4change

· Find out more about the fight against global hunger by visiting

o www.one.org

o www.wfp.org