Dr. Bill Bassett and members of the Wallkill East Rotary Club brought smiles to the faces of many Pine Bush third-graders recently as they distributed dictionaries to each one of them.
Dr. Bassett handed out dictionaries to all third-grade student at all four of our elementary schools: EJ Russell, Pakanasink, Circleville and Pine Bush Elementary School, part of the Dictionary Project, a nearly-30-year-old Rotary project to help improve literacy in students.
Dr. Bassett, a former superintendent here in Pine Bush, explained to the students that Rotary is a service organization, helping those in need in their community. They became involved with the Dictionary Project because one of the service areas they are involved with is the youth of the community. Another is education.
The dictionaries were distributed on pajama day at EJR during Spirit Week.
The Wallkill East Rotary Club has been providing this service to our district since the spring of 2008. That year, they returned in the fall to give dictionaries to the new third-graders and the tradition began! Since 2008, the Wallkill East Rotary has distributed about 4,000 dictionaries.
There were assignments. First, they were to write their names in their dictionary because, as Dr. Bassett explained, the books belong to them and he hoped they would take them along to each grade that follows. The second assignment was to find the word service and determine which of the 10 definitions describes what the Rotary does.
After each presentation, students in each school thanked Dr. Bassett for their new dictionaries, presenting them with homemade cards, many signed by each student in the class.
The Wallkill East Rotary is a wonderful partner to our district and thank them for all they do for our students.