PARIS — The Rotary Club of Oxford Hills members recently spent a weekly meeting prepping 211 dictionaries to give out to all 3rd graders in SAD 17. This is the 18th year OH Rotary has been distributing dictionaries, and a few years ago, the Club renamed the Dictionary Project in honor of Mary Lou Burns, a long-time teacher and administrator in SAD 17 and a Rotarian for many years, who was instrumental in starting this project along with Past President Royal Earle back in 2004. To date, the club has distributed 4,704.

One of Rotary International’s focuses is to promote literacy and this is one way the OH Club is accomplishing that in our community. These 3rd graders have a great time learning about all these books have to offer including listing all the Presidents of the US, sign language, braille, planets, and finding the longest word in the English language. The students are allowed to keep the dictionaries at school until the school year ends, then they get to keep them throughout the rest of their educational learning. For more information about Rotary, go to www.rotary.org, www.oxfordhillsrotary.org or follow them on Facebook.