— by Lin McNulty —
Third graders at Salmonberry School and Orcas Christian School were each recently presented with a Scholastic Children’s Dictionary as part of a nationwide Grange project. The Grange Words for Thirds program is in support of The Dictionary Project.
The Dictionary Project is a non-profit charitable organization based in Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A., and was founded by Mary French in 1995 to provide personal copies of a dictionary for third grade students in the South Carolina public school system. It has grown into a national organization. To date, over 19 million dictionaries have been donated to children in the United States and internationally. It is funded through individual donations and by sponsors who implement the program in their local schools.
The national Grange program has been in existence since 1995; Washington State Grange joined the program in 2004, and this is the third year for the program on Orcas.
The Grange’s network of more than 200,000 volunteers, America’s oldest rural and agriculture organization, has presented third grade students across the nation with more than 100,000 dictionaries.
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