Each year, Fargo Rotarians take part in delivering dictionaries to nearly 2,500 third grade students in seven local school districts in Cass (North Dakota) and Clay (Minnesota) Counties. Started many years ago by the Moorhead Rotary Club, all area Rotary Clubs are now involved in visiting third grade classrooms to talk about Rotary and promote literacy and learning. In the age of online dictionaries, it’s still amazing to see the joy on a child’s face when opening a dictionary and writing their own name inside!
Special Dictionary Project video - check it out! https://youtu.be/hUWmMRbyR3s
The 4 Rotary Clubs in Fargo have completed our 15th year of distributing dictionaries to every 3rd grader in Fargo and West Fargo. In 2024-2025, 2,297 books were hand-distributed by Rotarian volunteers to students in 99 classrooms!
Why dictionaries, you may wonder? These aren't just ANY dictionary, these are special reference books that contain not just a dictionary where kids can practice looking up words, finding definitions, learning alphabetical order and other core literacy functions; but there are also many interesting additional sections for exploration, including the U.S. Constitution, the periodic table of elements, the American Sign Language alphabet, a list of the longest words in the English language, facts about all 50 states, maps of the countries of the world, and much more. Third graders cherish keeping these books for years to come
We had a great project this fall, join us for Fall 2026!