There were excited kids all over Waseca when the Lions Club came calling last week to present personal dictionaries for 191 students.

The club gave 115 dictionaries to Hartley Elementary, 32 to Sacred Heart Elementary, 20 to TEAM Academy and 24 Spanish-English dictionaries to the English as a Second Language classes—at a cost to the Lions of $300.

Don Zwach, president of the Lions Club, addressed the students in their classrooms after giving them each a dictionary.  He said close to two million dictionaries were given to students in 2006 as a gift from the people who live in their towns through The Dictionary Project.  Thanks to the generosity of participating sponsors, he said, more than five million children have received a dictionary since The Dictionary Project began.

`The goal of this program is to assist all students in completing the school year as good writers, active readers and creative thinkers by providing them with their own personal dictionary,` Zwach said.  `The dictionaries are a gift to each student to use at school and at home for years to come.`

Zwach told the students that reading is the most important skill of all, and the idea behind giving them a dictionary is to improve literacy.  He said the Lions Club motto is `We serve.`

He said the club is particularly interested in serving young people, and that`s why they are making this gift to students throughout the schools in Waseca.

He pointed out to the students that in the back of the dictionaries there was a great deal of other information, including maps, that would also be of interest.

In the fourth grade class at TEAM Academy, teacher Jill Ladwig said, `We use dictionaries a lot, so it will be a useful tool for the students at home and at school.  They are all just really excited.`

TEAM director Eileen Shimota expressed how much the school appreciates the support.