Vincent Marshall Dodge City Globe

For 17 years, the goal has been to promote literacy and inspire young people to acquire strong reading and dictionary skills.

Third-graders in Ford County will receive a special gift from the Dodge City Rotary Club – their very own dictionary.

The Rotary Club will provide fewer than 640 hardcover, 648-page dictionaries to third-grade students in Dodge City, Sacred Heart, Bucklin, Spearville and Jetmore that feature colorful graphics, allowing students to associate words with pictures.

The dictionary project is part of a national program for all Rotary clubs.

The Dodge City program began in 2005 and is carried out in part by state Rotary clubs and local business sponsors.

“It’s a way to reach the whole county, not just a project for one community,” said club member and organizer Lowell Brakey. “It’s literally reaching out to the whole community. Because Rotary is a civic club, student literacy skills are very important.

Beginning in 1992, the idea for The Dictionary Project was born when Annie Plummer of Savannah, Georgia, donated 50 dictionaries to children who attended a school near her home.

In previous years, Plummer continued to give the dictionary as a gift and later raised funds to give away more and more books and led to becoming a non-profit organization in 1995 through members of the community in Georgia.

Over 27 million children have received dictionaries since its inception in 1995.

The Dodge City Rotary Club has placed more than 10,500 dictionaries in Ford County and Jetmore.

According to the Dodge City Rotary Club, studies have shown that third grade is the best age and year for students to begin learning the dictionary.

The dictionaries will be distributed to students in classrooms in February as soon as the Rotary Club has reached its goal of commercial sponsors, print the labels indicating who are the sponsors for 2021-22 which are glued to the inside of the cover of the book .

“We did this to give students a boost in learning,” said Roy Betz, another Rotary member. “We felt like third grade, that’s when they start looking at the dictionary.”

Dodge City Rotary Club President Don Gregg added, “It’s very rewarding to come to school, hand out the books and see the reaction of the kids when you give them something like a dictionary. I think they really appreciate it.

Other Rotary members shared that for some students, the dictionary is the first book they own that helps with literacy.

The Dodge City Rotary Club meets every Monday at noon at the Boot Hill Casino & Resort Conference Center and is always looking for new members. All people of good will are welcome.

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