Port Jervis Rotary gives students the gift of knowledge

For the seventh 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.

The Port Jervis Rotary participates every year in the Dictionary Project - a nationwide literacy campaign. The Port Jervis Rotary Club purchases the dictionaries and then distributes them to every third grade student in the Port Jervis City School District.

On November 21, a group of Port Jervis Rotarians visited Anna S. Kuhl and Hamilton Bicentennial Elementary Schools to personally present the dictionaries to the students.

ASK students proudly display the new dictionaries they received from Port Jervis Rotarians (left to right) Project founders Roy Hinshalwood and Sophia Hinshalwood, Wendy Della Pia, Dictionary Project Chairman and Rotary Vice President Pat Witherow, President Charlene Trotter, and Moncia McDonald. Missing from the picture is Rotary Past President Rev. Steve Huston.	Principal Sharon Dickstein helps a group of HBE 3rd graders thank the Rotarians for their generosity.  halwood, 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 seven 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.