Over 10,069,172 children have received a dictionary thanks to the generosity of sponsors who have participated in the Dictionary Project. Sponsors provide a dictionary for the children in their community each year, so they can enjoy the benefits of a large vocabulary.

2,417,994 dictionaries were given to students in 2008 as a gift from people who live in their town.

The Dictionary Project is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization. The goal of this program is to assist all students in completing the school year as good writers, active readers and creative thinkers by providing students with their own personal dictionary. The dictionaries are a gift to each student to use at school and at home for years to come. The Dictionary Project gives 95 cents of every dollar donated toward the purchase of dictionaries.

Reading is the most important skill of all. It is the starting point for all the economic and social opportunities this world has to offer. Educators see third grade as the dividing line between learning to read and reading to learn. Every year we watch The Dictionary Project grow by expanding our pool of sponsors, so more children can enjoy the benefits of owning their own personal dictionary.

Our sponsors have made tireless efforts to improve literacy and the quality of life in their communities. These volunteers are the breath of life of The Dictionary Project. Through The Dictionary Project, people feel empowered to effect change and improve education so that the children will grow up better prepared to compete in the global economy.

Many thanks to David Boynton of New Hampshire

The Dictionary Project is fortunate to have several volunteers who undertake to coordinate the project in a large region or even a whole state. One such volunteer is David Boynton, of the Pemigewasset Valley Pomona Grange in Plymouth, New Hampshire. In 2002 that Grange initiated what was intended to be a five-year test project to provide dictionaries for third graders in schools serving seven relatively small towns. Seven years later, the Dictionary Project of New Hampshire has coordinated efforts involving dozens of community Granges, banks, Telecom Pioneers, and community groups throughout the state to provide dictionaries to fifty thousand third graders. David Boynton has provided the organization, kept meticulous records, ordered the dictionaries using our e-check system, provided bookplates for all of the dictionaries to be presented by the volunteers, and in many other ways made it easy for the Granges to participate in the project. Now he finds himself having to step down as coordinator of the Dictionary Project of New Hampshire, though reluctantly, due to continuing health issues which significantly restrict his ability to perform the work required to keep the project running smoothly. He writes in a letter to the New Hampshire Granges, “Personally, I have felt far more positive about the Grange involvement with this project than for any other Grange-focused project in the last half-lifetime. There is a great personal satisfaction that, ‘By God, this time we have done something right!'”

Like many others, David was skeptical of The Dictionary Project when he first heard about it. He told us that he questioned the value of spending money for something readily available to students at home, at their schools, and at public libraries. “Not a good use of the limited financial resources of local Granges.” That attitude changed after inquiries about implementing the project in local schools were responded to enthusiastically because “Too many students simply do not have a dictionary at home.” He described his first visit to a school to present the dictionaries to the students in the same way a Chicago Rotarian related his experience. The Rotarian said, “I thought it would be like handing out socks. The children already had books at home, so I saw no need for charity on this front. I was so wrong. They immediately wanted to look up words and then show them to their neighbors. They wouldn't let me out of there, they wanted my autograph, and then students wanted to show me words in their dictionary that were in their science lesson.”

David said he was not prepared for the excitement and genuine joy the children expressed when they received their dictionaries. He asked himself, “How could a paperback dictionary create such excitement?” After reading the letters from the students, he realized that it was the first dictionary and too often, the first book for many of the students. It is a shocking and blunt statement to hear children say to the sponsors, “We don't have any books at home.” The idea of having a dictionary is one of the most distant ideas they have when the volunteers present the dictionaries to the students. The message comes through to the child receiving the dictionary that “these people are interested in my education.” That simple transaction of giving a child a dictionary says to them “here is something to help you—it is not a test, you do not have to write a paper.” This simple tool has an immediate and direct benefit for the students.

The Dictionary Project will continue in New Hampshire , as others have stepped forward to provide the coordination efforts. They too, believe that this basic educational tool should be available to all students and will enhance their learning experiences.

We at The Dictionary Project want to thank David Boynton for his dedication, his energy, and his devotion to the project.

The Dictionary Project and Participation Maps

he Dictionary Project is working toward the goal of sending dictionaries to every elementary school in the United States. By doing this we hope to have a positive impact on education in this country and empower children to become skillful communicators and resourceful learners. Our country and our world face many challenges, and we need to prepare our young people to be strong, productive citizens who can succeed and grow and solve problems in a rapidly changing world. A pocket dictionary may be a small thing, but it is a powerful tool to help with learning, and when it is a gift from a child’s community, the child learns from it not just the value of school work, but also the example of community service.

In order to help our generous sponsors spread the benefits of The Dictionary Project throughout their communities and eventually cover the whole nation, we have made some improvements to our website. The Participation Maps pages now list not just the schools our sponsors have covered, but all of the public schools in each state. The list is colorcoded to show which schools have a current sponsor, a past sponsor but not yet current one, or no sponsor at all. Donors who are able to expand their projects or new prospective donors can reference these lists to see where their help may be needed. The schools are organized by school district, so sponsors would simply need to find out which school districts are in their area and then start searching the list. It is our hope that this feature will be useful and will inspire people to help us ‘fill in the gaps’!