My husband and I recently distributed over 850 dictionaries to the teachers and third-grade students of the Lucia Mar Unified School District on the Central Coast of California.  We visited over 40 classrooms at 11 elementary schools.

I spent a few minutes telling each class that my father had come to the United States from Italy with only his first language, Italian.  He learned English in school, and he always loved both of his languages.  He studied English all of his life, and he often read the dictionary to learn something new.  Many of the students in the Lucia Mar District are bilingual, and I hope my father`s story will let them know what a gift it is to speak in two languages.

The students thanked us while we were in the classrooms, and many of them have also written to us.  One girl wrote in her letter, `I will become smart with this dictionary.`  Several others told us that their dictionaries will help them become scholars.  If the students use their dictionaries, they will indeed become smart scholars.  That will make my husband and me very happy.