The Kiwanis Club of Woodhaven recently purchased 576 third grade dictionaries – enough dictionaries to provide a dictionary for every third grader at Anderson, Bates, Erving, Gudith, Hedke, Wegienka and Yake elementary schools. Kiwanians spent an evening labeling the dictionaries and followed through delivering the dictionaries to the seven elementary schools.

The idea for The Dictionary Project began in 1992, when Annie Plummer of Savannah, Georgia, gave 50 dictionaries to children who attended a school close to her home. Each year she continued to give this gift, raising money to help give more and more books so that in her lifetime, she raised enough money to buy 17,000 dictionaries for children in Savannah.

From this humble beginning, local organizations, such as Kiwanis, have purchased and distributed 31 million dictionaries to schools all over the United States. Woodhaven Kiwanis President Bob McCoy reports the club is proud to be part of the Dictionary Project for the last fourteen years.

The goal of the Dictionary Project is to assist all students in becoming good writers, active readers, creative thinkers, and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary. The dictionaries are a gift to each student to use at school and at home for years to come.

Club President Bob McCoy said this dictionary contains all the elements of an excellent resource for students. It also includes over 150 pages of supplemental information in the back. Key features include the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, brief biographies of all of the U.S. presidents, world maps, and information about all 50 states, and countries of the world.

The dictionary also has the planets in our solar system, sign language, braille and the longest word in the English language. If you are not sure of the longest word, check with a third grader!