ONEONTA _ The Oneonta Rotary Club is once again giving out dictionaries to third-graders in Oneonta-area schools.
But this year, it expanded the annual project, in its fourth year, to promote literacy and childhood education. Every sixth-grade student in participating schools is also receiving a thesaurus.
Rotary members distributed the reference books at Center Street Elementary on Friday during the monthly spirit day.
"It's a wonderful way to give back to the community," said Center Street Principal John Cook. "It's something tangible that teachers can use with students."
Each year, Rotarians carry out projects around the world to expand and improve childhood literacy and education, said local President Catrina Truesdell.
"We decided to keep it in our community instead of going elsewhere," she said.
Sam Koury, who started the program when he was local president three years ago, said that with that first group of recipients going into sixth grade, "we wanted to do something" to help them with new challenges.
One of those who got the book was sixth-grader Brock Eichler, who said the gift will be as useful as he last received a dictionary from Rotary three years ago.
Sixth-grade teacher Joe Collier said the thesaurus is a great writing tool for students.
The money to purchase the 250 thesauri and 150 dictionaries came from several fundraisers that Rotary has been involved with during the year, Truesdell said.
The reference books have already been given out at Riverside, Greater Plains and Laurens elementary schools, as well as Oneonta Community Christian Academy and Saint Mary's Roman Catholic School.
The final distribution will be at Valleyview Elementary on Nov. 17, Koury said.
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Mark Boshnack can be reached at 432-1000 or (800) 721-1000, ext. 218, or at mboshnack@thedailystar.com.
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