Luxury Real Estate

By Jim Walberg of Keller Williams Realty - The Bay Area Team

For the past several years the Rotary Club that I have been a member of since it was chartered in 1989 has distributed dictionaries to the 3^rd-graders of the San Ramon Unified School District. There were over 30 of our Rotary club members who participated in the distribution last week. David Behring, president of the Wheelchair Foundation, and myself assisted with the dictionary distribution at Tassajara Hills Elementary. David and I went into the 3^rd-grade classrooms to the delight of the students. As we were distributing them we had them help us look up words so they could learn how to navigate through the beautiful hardbound dictionary. Some of the words were “service”, “Gila monster”, and “impertinent”.. As a student would find the word they would raise their hand, then stand up and read the definition. I hope you agree with me when I say the love of reading is one of the most important skills a young student can learn. Dictionaries are intended to bring words to life, and as a resource for students to use for many years.

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. Early on, her project attracted the attention of Bonnie Beeferman of Hilton Head, S.C., who began a project of raising money by selling crafts to buy dictionaries for the schoolchildren of Hilton Head and the surrounding communities.

By 1995, Bonnie was getting so many requests from local teachers to be included in the project that she wrote a letter to the editor of the Charleston, S. C., newspaper explaining the project and asking for someone to help meet the requests from the Charleston area. Mary French, who was already an active school volunteer even though her two children were still of preschool age, read the letter and decided this was a project for her. Starting with a few schools in Charleston and Summerville, she realized quickly that providing dictionaries to all the students in Charleston was going to require serious fundraising. She and her husband Arno French formed a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit Association in 1995, along with a Board of Directors. Arno served as president, Mary became the director of the association, and The Dictionary Project was born.

Since 1995, over 11,668,293 children have received a dictionary thanks to the generosity of sponsors like our Rotary Club, who have participated in the Dictionary Project. We have chosen to focus on all the 3^rd- graders in our local school district so they can enjoy the benefits of a large vocabulary. In 2008, alone, there were 2,417,994 dictionaries given to students as gifts from organizations like Rotary and my local real estate agents. The goal of this program is to assist all students in completing the school year as good writers, active readers and creative thinkers by providing students with their own personal dictionary.

Most children do not own a dictionary, nor do they have access to one in their home. We selected the third graders as the group to provide them to each year since there are at the age at which dictionary skills are usually taught. It is a challenge for a student to do their best work without a dictionary. By providing this tool we are helping teachers as they are helping all their students become active readers, good writers, creative thinkers, and resourceful learners.

The Dictionary Project is now in 15 countries. If dictionaries are not being distributed to the 3^rd – graders in your community you may want to consider organizing a way for it to happen. Until next time…your East Bay lifestyle detective remains on duty! CLICK HERE if you would like information on any real estate services.