As they have done for many years, the Shepherdstown and Charles Town Rotary clubs have teamed up this fall to provide free dictionaries and thesauruses to students in Jefferson County schools.

The two clubs buy the books with Rotary funds, and club members volunteer their time to distribute them. They give dictionaries to all the third graders in the schools and thesauruses to all the fifth graders.

This year, they distributed a total of 701 dictionaries and 680 thesauruses during visits to schools between Sept. 28 and

Oct. 4.

The Shepherdstown Club handles distributions to the schools in the northern part of the county: C.W. Shipley, Driswood, North Jefferson, Shepherdstown and T.A. Lowery elementary schools. The Charles Town Club handles distribution to the remaining four schools: Blue Ridge, Ranson and South Jefferson Elementary and Wright Denny Intermediate.

Promoting literacy has always been a major Rotary priority, and the organization sees the distribution of dictionaries and thesauruses as an important part of that effort.

The goal is to help students early on to become good writers and readers, so they can develop good communications skills that will serve them well no matter what vocation or profession they follow when they become

adults.