Port Jervis Rotary gives students the gift of knowledge

For the sixth consecutive year, the Rotary Club has given all third graders in the Port Jervis City School District their very own copy of the “Webster” dictionary.

On Nov. 8, a group of Port Jervis Rotarians visited Anna S. Kuhl and Hamilton Bicentennial Elementary Schools to personally present the dictionaries to the students. “We want to make sure that all children in the Port Jervis School District have a dictionary,” said Patrick Witherow, chairman of the Rotary Dictionary Project and Port Jervis School Board member.

Witherow encouraged the students to use the dictionary to expand their vocabulary and to look up the meaning of new words.
 

ASK students proudly display their new dictionaries. Principal Donna Muro and Assistant Superintendent John Bell helped thank the Rotarians for their generous donation.	Rotarians (from left) Pat Witherow, Sophia Hinshalwood, Roy Hinshalwood, and Steven Huston are pictured with some of the HBE 3rd graders who received dictionaries.

Millions of dictionaries have been purchased and distributed by Rotary clubs across the country since the program started more than a decade ago in South Carolina. The Dictionary Project was brought to Port Jervis six years ago by Roy Hinshalwood shortly after he and his wife, Sophia, relocated to the Hudson Valley. The success of the Port Jervis program has prompted Rotary clubs across the state of New York to participate in the youth-orientated project.

This year, the Port Jervis Rotary presented more than 200 dictionaries to local 3rd graders.