Capital Rotary Club members Jenks Mikell (back row, left) and John Guignard (back row) are
all smiles after distributing paperback dictionaries to third-grade students at Arden Elementary
School, part of the club’s annual participation in The Dictionary Project.
The project – begun by a non-profit organization in Charleston in 1995 – aims to help students
become good writers, active readers, creative thinkers and resourceful learners by providing
them with their own personal dictionary.
Capital Rotary donated dictionaries to nearly 850 students in 12 Richland County District One
schools for 2013-14. Over the past nine years, the club has purchased and given dictionaries to
10,500 third-graders in the Columbia area.
A number of clubs in South Carolina and throughout the country are Dictionary Project sponsors.
One of Rotary International’s six major goals is improving basic education and literacy.