Optimists and Lions donate dictionaries
September 24, 2009
Wentzville, MO
The Wentzville/Lake Saint Louis Optimist Club and the Wentzville Lions Club joined forced to raise money recently in order to provide dictionaries to every third grade student in every school within the Wentzville School District boundaries.
The joint effort was in conjunction with The Dictionary Project, a non-profit group whose goal is “to assist all students in completing the school year as good writers, active readers and creative thinkers by providing students with their own personal dictionary,” according to the group’s website.
Third grade students in all seven Wentzville Elementary schools as well as those attending private schools received dictionaries as a result of the Optimist and Lions Club efforts.
This is the fourth year the Optimist Club has been involved with The Dictionary Project. Due to the recent tremendous growth in our area, the Optimists found that they were unable to continue the effort on their own and invited the Lions Club to join them in their mission to provide dictionaries to every local third grader.
Because of their combined fundraising efforts and the generous donations of three local benefactors, 1,272 dictionaries were donated to our area schools this year. The companies that made significant donations include Palombi Vision, AmerenUE, and the United Parcel Service (UPS).
Last year, the Dictionary Project placed over 46,000 dictionaries in Missouri schools and nearly 2.5 million dictionaries nationwide.
“One particular study that I looked at said students that graduated in the 1950’s had a working vocabulary of about 250,000 words and that students graduating today have a working vocabulary of about 100,000 words—a dramatic vocabulary drop,” says Cecil Raymer, Chairman of Civic Projects and Fundraising for the Optimist Club. “Our hope, by providing these dictionaries to students, is that they will further develop their vocabularies. Hopefully this will result in better reading, writing and listening skills—all of which are needed not only in a school setting, but later in life and in their careers.”
From the Wentzville School District.
Copyright 2009 Neighbors About Town
