Technology giant Facebook awarded Spartanburg-based non-profit Rice Bowls with its Social Good App of the Year award this week for its hunger-fighting video game app, Hunger Crunch.
Hunger Crunch – available for iOS and Android devices – puts 100 percent of the profits from in-app purchases toward feeding children in 54 orphanages in eight countries around the world. The app allows the gamer to rid the virtual world of hunger, collecting candy coins at each of the 12 levels. Players can also use real money to buy candy coins in bulk, the profits of which go to orphanages.
Facebook recognized the app during its F8 Facebook Developer Conference, held this week in San Francisco. The inaugural accolade was awarded by FbStart, a Facebook initiative aimed at providing developers with free tools and services to help startups take off. The social good app of the year – an award that includes a $5,000 cash prize and $5,000 in Facebook ad credit – was given alongside an FbStart app of the year award and three regional apps of the year awards.
Founded in 1980, Rice Bowls is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization aimed at helping organizations collect money to feed the hungry. The company manufactures, administers and distributes plastic rice bowl coin banks in the Upstate, and has raised tens of millions of dollars to alleviate world hunger, according to the Rice Bowls website.
