Third-Graders Enjoy Dictionaries from Long Neck Sunrise Rotary Club

Nearly 120 third-grade students at Long Neck Elementary School waited in the school cafeteria March 11 to receive a special surprise from the Long Neck Sunrise Rotary Club. Members of the club, led by President Harry Hiltner, arrived shortly after 8:30 a.m. and after a rousing rendition of “God Bless America,” led by Rotarian Judy Mangini, distributed student dictionaries. This is the fourth year the Long Neck Sunrise Rotary Club has distributed dictionaries to third-graders at the school. Part of an international effort called The Dictionary Project, the program was started in 1992 and has been embraced by many groups, including Rotary clubs, throughout the world. Since its implementation, more than 18 million children have received dictionaries. The Long Neck Sunrise Rotary Club uses proceeds from its popular golf outing held each June at The Peninsula to finance the project. Long Neck Elementary counselor Cathy Besden-Showell says, “The third-grade students were very excited about receiving their dictionaries, which have much more in them than just the definitions of words, and some of the students even brought them to the cafeteria to look at while they ate their lunches.”