Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Shares the Power of Words

As has occurred in each of the past 13 years, every third-grader attending any of the four public elementary schools in Lafayette Friday received a free personal copy of the latest American Heritage Children's Dictionary, compliments of Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary. In all, some 300 dictionaries were handed out.

It was hard to tell who had the bigger smiles, the children or the club members who distributed them. Teams descended simultaneously on each of the four schools – Springhill, Happy Valley, Burton Valley and Lafayette.

Over the years, the club has invested nearly $50,000 in purchasing the dictionaries. The tab this year, according to president Thomas Peeks, was "about $4,000." The club contributes every dime toward the purchase.

Rotary International, with some 33,000 clubs and 1.2 million members worldwide, is heavily involved in supporting a variety of educational programs at the local level, with each club deciding how it wants to participate. Another major project of RI is contributing money toward the eradication of polio, which, to the surprise of many Americans, still plagues parts of the globe, particularly in Africa.