Gulfport Rotary Club gifts dictionaries to third grade students

This morning, Gulfport Rotary Club members paid a visit to Central Elementary with gifts in hand.

This visit was to hand out 85 dictionaries to third grade students as part of their volunteer outreach program. After they gave the dictionaries to the kids, they helped them find their way around the book and played a few fun games.

One member told the students they have ran into seniors at Gulfport High School who still have their dictionaries.

By the end of the day, every third grader in the Gulfport School District will be going home with a new dictionary. Gulfport Rotary Program Chair Christina Barton said, “We’ve been doing this for over 10 years now. It’s a way to get kids excited about different words. It broadens their vocabulary. You know, a lot of kids these days are going online and using a computer, but this is a way for them to touch something tangible and actually find the words right there in front of them.”

The club has been doing this for over a decade and the tradition was started by Bob and Kathleen Kranz in 2006.