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Oakmont Kiwanis update

Club provides dictionaries and more to schoolkids in Kenwood and beyond
Oakmont Kiwanis update
Kindergartners at Dunbar Elementary School share the books they’ve selected for their home libraries during the school’s month-long Read Across America literacy celebration. BBC-Schools, a ministry of St. Patrick’s Church in Kenwood, and All Saints School in Carmel, donated about 800 books to support literacy at the Glen Ellen school. Each student received at least five free books to take home and enjoy. Read Across America also included Dunbaropoly, where minutes-read-daily corresponded to moving around a Monopoly-style gameboard with prizes given for rounding corners, and culminated with a school-wide celebration recognizing scholars who logged the most minutes read in the month of February, followed by read-alouds in classrooms with local community members.Photo by Tracy Salcedo

By Beverly Singer

The local Kiwanis Club recently donated funds to purchase dictionaries for every second-grade student at Kenwood Elementary School. Kiwanians have done this for many years and will continue to do so. The students keep these dictionaries for use in their classrooms and at home. The dictionaries are theirs to keep.

“Thank you again for the generous donation,” teachers Patricia Ehn and Sharon Watson wrote in a thank-you from the class. “Our students were over-the-moon excited about this gift. We wish that you could have felt their joy and seen their reaction upon learning it was a gift.”

The Kiwanians are in awe at the beauty of the book. It shows the good education these students are receiving.

Some quotes from students’ letters included, “Thank you for my first, wonderful dictionary! I am going to use it to impress my family! I love my dictionary.” Another student wrote, “Thank you for my super special, amazingly super cool dictionary. I know how to use it. My teachers taught me.”

If there was more room, I could go on. Each letter is super cool and amazing. Congratulations to the second-grade students and their teachers.

The Kiwanis Club also partners with Kenwood Elementary School to present Hope of America Awards to fifth- and sixthgrade students. Club members, before the pandemic, were reading buddies to students. They hope to restart this program soon. The Kiwanis Club also assists in the school’s Redwood Empire Food Drive.

Besides Kenwood School, the club donates funds to purchase library books and the Kids Scoop News for Luther Burbank School. The Kiwanis Club also sponsors Key Clubs at Montgomery and Maria Carrillo High Schools. Graduating seniors at those schools can qualify to receive college scholarships.

Additionally, this Kiwanis Club sponsors youth to the Luther Burbank Arts Center summer music and art program. And right now the Club is collecting flip-flops, colored pencils, activity kits, and arts and crafts kits for the Valley of the Moon Children’s Home. Meg Easter-Dawson from the home will be the guest speaker at the March 24 Oakmont Kiwanis meeting.

Kiwanis is involved in many community events also. The big Shred-A-Thon will be in June, and mark your calendars for the popular Margaritas and Carnitas Event on Aug. 13.

Our Kiwanis Club, like all organizations, needs volunteers. Even though we are titled the Oakmont Kiwanis Club, members live all over Sonoma County, from Sonoma to Windsor. We invite you to join us. For information contact President Fran Lazzarini at [email protected] or by phone at (928) 202-1105.

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