Dictionaries to be distributed to all area third-graders

Later this week, Maggie Wilson, a Warrenville Elementary School student, will get the special gift of a new dictionary, along with all of her third-grade classmates.

That gift will be extra special for Maggie, who helped label and pack the dictionaries Saturday with her family friend, Aiken Sunrise Rotary member Sharon Johnson, and more than two dozen Rotarians from three Rotary clubs.

Over about two weeks, members of Sunrise, the Aiken Rotary Club and the Rotary Club of North Augusta will distribute more than 2,000 dictionaries to third-graders in every Aiken County public and private school. Nationally, a total of nearly 2.5 million dictionaries were donated by Rotary clubs in 2009, a number that could be exceeded this year.

"It never gets old," said coordinator Johanna Blue, an Aiken Rotary Club member. "I love it. These books are wonderful resources, and every student and teacher can have the same dictionary and be on the same page."

Blue's daughter Sabrena, a Schofield Middle School seventh-grader, has helped her mom for the past four years and recalls receiving her own dictionary.

When she started labeling dictionaries and the boxes as a third-grader, "I recall my fingers hurting a lot," Sabrena said. "But the other kids at school thought it was cool that I was helping everybody."

The national program actually has South Carolina roots. Two Savannah and Hilton Head residents had begun distributing dictionaries to schools in the early 1990s. When Mary French, a Charleston school volunteer, heard about their efforts, she soon established a nonprofit organization with the goal of providing dictionaries to all S.C. third-graders. That mission soon expanded far beyond that.

Steve Black, an Aiken Sunrise member, has hosted the packaging of the dictionaries at his firm, Screenprint Factory, since Rotary clubs in Aiken County began participating in the project in 2002. He plans to accompany Aiken Superintendent Dr. Beth Everitt, an Aiken Rotary Club member, to one of the elementary schools on Oct. 5.

"It's so much fun," Black said. "We don't want to ever stop doing it."

Contact Rob Novit at rnovit@aikenstandard.com.