Shenandoah Elks Lodge gives out free dictionaries to kids

If you were to look up the word "give" in the dictionary, it would read, "to present, to donate, to hand over."

That’s exactly what the Shenandoah Elks Lodge is all about – giving. In fact, they recently handed out more than 300 free dictionaries to third graders in Page and Fremont Counties as part of the Dictionary Project.

Terry Miller, Shenandoah Elks Lodge Loyal Knight, explained the lodge has been participating in the Dictionary Project since 2005.

“It’s a national project where they would like every third grader in the United States to get a dictionary,” said Miller.

Since the Dictionary Project’s inception, 15,182,689 children have received free dictionaries, with 1,776 being sponsored by the Shenandoah Elks Lodge alone.

“It’s a great project,” Miller said. “We’re glad to be a part of it.”

Nationally, the BPOE (Elks) has been supporting the Dictionary Project since 2002. Within that amount of time, more than 930 Elk chapters have donated 1,709,456 books.

So far in 2011-12, Miller said 118,436 dictionaries have been donated in more than 1,700 schools with about 195 Elks Clubs participating.
Local schools that received dictionaries for third grade students were: Garfield Elementary in Clarinda, Clarinda Lutheran, South Page, Essex, Shenandoah, Farragut, Hamburg, Sidney, Fremont-Mills, East Mills, and Nishna Valley.

“We gave out 312 dictionaries,” Miller said. “The Elks have become a big part of this project. Since just the Shenandoah Elks have become involved, we’ve given out 288 books.”