Life without words would have no meaning. Human beings would not be able to define themselves. There would be no originality. But students who attended Colusa Unified School District during their third grade year in 2000 were introduced to the dictionary and the door of opportunities opened. With the help of the Colusa Rotary Club children at Burchfield Primary were given dictionaries.

To most high school students third grade year is a blur, but some can never forget the day they got their first dictionary. Kati Hunt remembers, “The day I got my dictionary I felt like I was finally a big kid.” Most students recall the experience this way, but others took it to a more serious note. Gilbert Montejano said, “I felt like crying because I’ve never had one before.” Which is true for most young children because they don’t find the need to go out and buy one. Some children didn’t even know what a dictionary was untill that day and after that a storm of questions started in their minds. “I remember that I use to get words out of the dictionary that I didn’t understand and I would ask my teacher to make the definition simpler,” Lena Melesio. Not only did the dictionary help teachers educate students it also allowed students to educate themselves.

Eleven years ago the dictionary program started as a regional program, but it did not continue this way, so the Colusa Rotary Club made it into a service organization. The Colusa Rotary Club decided to continue this program because dictionaries promote literacy and they believe every child should own one. The Rotary Club also gets to interact with the teachers and the third grade teachers add the dictionary as part of their curriculum.