'Tis the season to write thank you notes, and we thought we would share a few we received recently:

"Dear Rotary, Thank you for My blue dictionary. I learned sign la n guage. I love it. From, Madison"

"Dear Rotary, Thank you for The Blue dictionary. I Like the last page. From, Will"

Madison and Will are just two of dozens of second-graders in the Boothbay region, all of whom received a dictionary of their very own as a gift from the Boothbay Harbor Rotary Club. The Dictionary Project is a wonderful community program that provides all our young people with this absolutely vital resource to encourage them to get involved with reading.

"It's important that we encourage our young students to read," says Rotarian Tammy Blackman, who spearheads the Dictionary Project for the Club. "It's great when parents read to their kids. But that isn't always possible, and as they get older and a bit more independent, our children need to be encouraged to read on their own." Thus, for the second year in a row, Boothbay Harbor Rotary Club members visited all local elementary schools to talk about the importance of reading and to deliver the dictionaries.

The Rotary Club has also given teaching guides to all region reading instructors, and it is buying age-appropriate "fun" books for the kids, working to help fill the void created when federal funding was cut for the very-popular Reading is Fundamental program.

"Dear Rotary, Thank you for the dictionary. I took it home and tried to read the longest word. From, Jake"

That "longest word," printed on the last page, is a real favorite with the kids, and it runs a sizeable paragraph all by itself - not that I have a better idea than Jake how to pronounce it or what it means. Of course, at his age I had just as little information about anti­disestablish­mentarianism , the word then determined by grownups to be the longest in the English language. On the other hand, then and now I can give you a definitive definition for supercali­fragilistic­expialidocious . I guess that proves we all learn what's really important to us!

"Dear Rotary, thank you for the dictionary. I liked it because it had stuff in it like the planets. I took it home and it taught me how to d e sign language. From, Jo"

Jo's not alone! Our local Dictionary Project is part of an international movement, involving Rotary Clubs and other civic organizations throughout the country that in 2007 provided over seven million children with dictionaries! Way to go!

We are proud to be local, multiyear sponsors of the Dictionary Project, and prouder still of our young people here in the Boothbay region schools.

It's a new year, and we have lots of other good programs and service projects in store!

The Christmas Caroling planned for Thursday, December 20, cancelled on account of the snowstorm, was rescheduled for the following Sunday, when Tammy Blackman led an enthusiastic group of 11 singers who brought many smiles to residents at St Andrews Hospital, St Andrews Village and Boothbay Green. There was no meeting on December 27 on account of the holidays.

On Thursday, January 3, we'll gather back at the Rotary Clubhouse to learn about the Camden First Aid Association. Over the past 12 years, this

group has brought medical care and oral surgery to our neighbors in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Our speakers will be Linda Wentworth and Lisa Burger, both St. Andrews employees and active in the organization; Lisa is also pastor of the East Boothbay Methodist Church. Greeter/Invocation that night will be by Dwight Swisher, with waitstaff of Daren Graves and Marty Helman and Judy deGraw as program chair. Vic Taylor will wield the gavel in president Skip's absence. January housekeeping assignments are: Steward, Doug Harley; Innkeeper, Marty Helman; 50/50, Tammy Blackman; and Sergeant at Arms, Tom Carroll.

The following week, Thursday January 10, Wells Rotarian Terry Hodskins will tell us about Wrap-a-Smile, the project she started (with the help of the Boothbay Harbor club) six years ago, and which is now an international program that has provided over 7000 quilts to children undergoing Rotary-sponsored surgeries worldwide. January 17 will be Rotary Recognition Night, with recipients of club grants telling about their experiences. The meeting on January 24 will feature fish stories by Bet Finocchiaro, and to complete the month, Peter Morrison will speak about the Red Cross Blood Bank on January 31.

Want to learn more about The Dictionary Project, Rotary or about our Club? Interested neighbors, visiting Rotarians and guests are invited to join us for our weekly meetings each Thursday at our one-of-a-kind Rotary Clubhouse at 29 Oak Street in downtown Boothbay Harbor. The bell is rung and dinner is served promptly at 6:30 p.m., then comes a short business meeting and special speaker. The evening ends by 8 p.m.

Check us out on the Web: www.boothbayharborrotary.org.