Sun Lakes Rotary Club Empowers Students with 83,000 Dictionaries

Sun Lakes Rotary Club Empowers Students with 83,000 Dictionaries

Since 2003, the Sun Lakes Rotary Club in Arizona has made literacy a priority by partnering with The Dictionary Project. To date, the club has distributed over 83,000 copies of “A Student’s Dictionary and Gazetteer” to students across Chandler Unified School District and schools in the Gila River Community. Rotarian Roger Edmonds shared why the project has endured for more than two decades: “Our Rotarians believed this project would help students become better spellers, readers, thinkers, and speakers. And the teachers have always been our biggest supporters.” The dictionaries go far beyond word definitions, they include geography, civics, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, multiplication tables, sign language, Braille, and even the longest word in English (1,909 letters!). Students and teachers are encouraged to send letters after using the books, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “100% of the teachers tell us: Do not stop this project.” This long-running initiative aligns perfectly with The Dictionary Project’s mission to empower every student with the essential tools for literacy. Through this commitment, Sun Lakes Rotarians are not only enhancing classroom learning, they are shaping stronger futures for students throughout Arizona.