Oct 7, 2021
ROTARY CLUBS DONATE REFERENCE BOOKS TO SCHOOLS
As they have done for many years, the Rotary Clubs of Shepherdstown and Charles Town have teamed up this fall to provide free dictionaries and thesauruses to students in Jefferson County schools.
The two clubs buy the books with Rotary funds, and club members volunteer their time to distribute them in the schools. They give dictionaries to all the third graders in the County's schools and thesauruses to all the fifth graders.
This year, there are 616 third graders and 664 fifth graders in the County's schools.
The Shepherdstown Club handles distributions to the schools in the northern part of the county: C.W. Shipley, Driswood, North Jefferson, Shepherdstown, and T.A. Lowery elementary schools.
The Charles Town Club handles distributions to the remaining four schools: Blue Ridge, Ranson and South Jefferson Elementary and Wright Denny Intermediate.
The accompanying photo was taken at T.A. Lowery Elementary School in Shenandoah Juction on Wednesday, October 6. It shows students in Ms. Hite's third-grade class holding dictionaries they had just received from members of the Shepherdstown Club.
Promoting literacy has always been a major Rotary priority, and the organization sees the distribution of dictionaries and thesauruses as an important part of that effort.
The goal is to help students early on to become good writers and readers, so they can develop good communications skills that will serve them well no matter what vocation or profession they follow when they become adults.