Presque Isle Rotary Club marks 10th year of donating thesauruses to kids
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Presque Isle High School seniors went back to third grade last Thursday.
Alyssa Sweeney, Sam Gray, Katie Ford, Olivia Hudson and Liam Daniels teamed up with the Presque Isle Rotary Club to donate thesauruses to third-graders at Eva Hoyt Zippel Elementary School.
The five seniors were among the first group of students to receive the donated books from the Rotary back in 2006.
Gray was honored to be asked to come back and help. The senior, who is going into neuroscience, shared with the elementary students his plans to go on and “study brains” after graduating.
Senior students were involved as role models says Sharon Campbell, a regional representative from the office of Sen. Angus King who launched the literacy project during her term as Rotary President. She has remained part of the effort ever since.
“We thought it would be fun to bring them back as seniors. Kids so often look up to those high school role models,” Campbell says the Rotary Club thought it would be a “nice way to show the current third-graders that they, too, will grow up and become seniors and that they will need to know creative writing.”
This marks the Rotary’s 10th year promoting literacy by donating around 170 thesauruses to third-graders in Presque Isle, Ashland, Mapleton and Easton.
Abigail, a student at Zippel, says she was happy to receive the book and knows when she will use it.
“I like it,” Abigail says, “I like to sometimes write stories at home and maybe I’ll find new words instead of words that I usually use.”
“We want to not only encourage literacy through this but . . . get them thinking about community service,” Campbell says.
Current Rotary President Frank Bemis, says his kids still have the thesaurus they received back in third grade.
Bemis says he is proud of the project and hopes students will use the books as a learning tool.
“Our ability to communicate is critical,” says Bemis, a local attorney. “Hopefully these kids will develop the skills to write stories and to write more types of reports and learn that there are ways to be creative, there’s ways to express yourself that these books can help you with.”
