KIRKSVILLE, MO -- Wednesday marks International Literacy Day. Thousand Hills Rotary Club is celebrating by giving the gift of reading to area students. Third graders at Mary Immaculate School in Kirksville received dictionaries to focus attention on worldwide literacy needs.
“Literacy is really important and we are fortunate to live in a country that has a very high literacy rate” said Rotary member Kelsey Aurand de Razo. “I think a lot of that is because groups like Rotary and our teachers, educational organizations work very diligently to keep the literacy level where it is.”
Aurand de Razo said students will use the dictionaries to practice spelling, organizational skills and find definitions of words. It’s estimated that 94 to 115 million children worldwide lack access to education.
“With youth literacy being so important to us as a club, of course we’re trying to promote youth literacy with these dictionaries but also international literacy” said Aurand de Razo. “We do what we can here locally to increase literacy amongst our youth but we also know as Rotarians we support it internationally as well.”
Thousand Hills Rotary Club plans to donate more than 250 dictionaries over the upcoming weeks to the Kirksville, Brashear, and Novinger school districts.
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