More than 12-hundred students across the Merced City School District are taking home a powerful tool, thanks to Merced Rotary. Club members have been busy delivering new copies of “A Student’s Dictionary” to every third grader in the district this week and last week.
The dictionary distribution has become an annual event, which is funded by Merced Rotary and the Rotary District. Club members visit every MCSD elementary school to hand out the dictionaries and explain why they are so useful. The volunteers then point out some special features, including the longest word in the English language, and they encourage the students to read as much and as often as possible.
They also speak about how Rotarians serve the community and share the organization’s Four Way Test, which asks the following questions:
1) Is it the truth?
2) Is it fair to all concerned?
3) Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
4) Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
For combination classes with both second and third grade students, the second graders receive coloring books from the Merced Rotary Club while getting a glimpse of the dictionaries they can look forward to next year.
Merced Rotary President Vinton Thengvall says, “We truly enjoy handing out the dictionaries, and the students are always excited to receive them. We realize our community has many underprivileged families who may not have dictionaries or other books at home. This is one way our club is able to help local children while continuing our efforts to support literacy and education.”
.jpg)