Darlington Rotary Club donates 450 dictionaries
Photo by Samantha Lyles.
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
Darlington Rotary Club presented over 450 new student dictionaries to the Darlington County School district last week, maintaining the club’s annual tradition of gifting these multipurpose reference guides to every third grader attending Darlington, Lamar, and Society Hill public schools.
“We feel like this is a really worthwhile effort because these dictionaries are very useful and sometimes it might be the only book the child has access to in their home,” said Byard Stone, past president of Darlington Rotary.
Dennis Jenkins, who organized the donation for Darlington Rotary, said one child informed him that the traditional printed dictionary came in quite handy recently when his class lost their Internet connection and he needed to look something up.
“He told me the computer went down at his school the other day and he needed to look up a word. He went and got the classroom dictionary and was able to look it up,” said Jenkins.
Stone said this dictionary project is one of the club’s favorite youth support efforts, along with providing scholarships to area high school graduates. These programs and others (like providing support for The Lord Cares Food Bank) are funded by proceeds from Darlington Rotary’s annual charity auction. Internationally, Rotary is involved with the push to eradicate polio and provide clean drinking water to needy communities around the world.