OPINION
Wednesdays are almost always a bit chaotic in my world.
Our publication deadline is 5 p.m., so it takes a lot to convince me to step away on a Wednesday, even for a little while.
This week, that good reason was delivering dictionaries to Pilot Point Elementary School third graders alongside my fellow Lake Ray Roberts Rotary Club member Don Richmond.
Our fellow Rotarians went to Aubrey ISD schools that same morning to distribute dictionaries to those kids.
Our dictionary project is one that is near and dear to my heart as a Rotarian.
I love watching the kids pick up their brand-new book to explore it and learn what resources it has inside. The ones we provide have not only basic definitions of words, but some great additions that the students love such as the American Sign Language alphabet—always a crowd favorite, the water cycle and the planets and short biographies of the U.S. presidents, among other tools they can study. My own girls loved receiving their copies when they were in third grade, and they still pull them out to use. Literacy is one of the most basic skills that everyone needs.
Being able to read information for ourselves and to understand what we take in are crucial for navigating our world and being able to judge for ourselves the validity of what we see.
I'm grateful for Rotary's focus as an international organization on the importance of literacy and its dedication, at home and abroad, to helping people understand their world better.
I hope some of those kids who got their dictionaries are inspired to become writers, scientists or even president themselves one day.
Abigail Bardwell is the Editor & Publisher of the Post-Signal. She can be reached at aallen@postsignal. com.
