From local classrooms to local news

In November 2009 my husband and I donated over 850 dictionaries to all of the third graders in the Lucia Mar Unified School District on the Central Coast of California. We visited every third grade class in 11 elementary schools.

We spent only a few minutes in each classroom, but I took the time to tell the children my father`s story: he was born in Italy and came to the United States when he was seven years old. All of his life he loved speaking both of his languages, Italian and English, and he loved learning about both of his languages. I remember him reading the dictionary often.

Because we have donated the dictionaries for five years, we are becoming known in the schools and in the community for the project. This year we were filmed by a local television station as we distributed the dictionaries, and I was briefly interviewed for the story. I told the reporter that in five years we have passed out more than 4,000 dictionaries. I also stressed my belief that even in this age of technology, nothing can take the place of a dictionary for each student. For some students this is the only book they own. This story was indeed `Film at 5!`