CHIMACUM — New dictionaries and new eyeglasses to read them with — those are the first two steps the Independent Order of Odd Fellows are taking in providing south East Jefferson County students with tools to be successful in their education.
“It’s all tied into reading,” said Carson Inman, secretary of the Odd Fellows Mount Baker Lodge No. 9 at 1118 Lawrence St., Port Townsend.
“If you have the dictionary at a young age, you start learning how to use it.
“And if you need glasses and don’t have them, obviously you can’t read very well, so we provide them.”
Rotarians have run similar programs for the Port Townsend School District for years, Inman said, but in 2006 he noticed a need in the public school districts in the southern part of the county.
For the past four years, Inman and the Odd Fellows have been providing the Chimacum, Quilcene and Brinnon school districts with both dictionaries and eyeglasses as a way of promoting literacy in the districts.
“We believe these two things are the most important starting points as far as education goes,” Inman said.
“The dictionaries we give out to students every year in their third grade class.
“And the glasses, well, that is all paid for by our members, too. If a student of any age needs glasses, or breaks their glasses and can’t afford them, we want to make sure they have access to a pair immediately. We pay for them on the spot.”
Inman said this year the Odd Fellows will hand out more than 90 pocket dictionaries to third grade students.
Teacher grateful
Mary Foster, a third grade teacher at Chimacum Elementary School, said she is grateful for the dictionaries.
“It really is a great program,” she said. “I know kids who have gotten them in years past who still hold on to them and use them.
“We practice how to use them, and I think they do become important to the students.”
Inman said he was unsure of how many eyeglasses would be provided to students this year since the group fills the requests as they come in.
“None have come across yet this year,” he said.
“Last year it was just one, and I think the year before we paid for three different pairs of glasses for students.”
Inman also said he hoped to meet with the school’s superintendents to see what more his group could do.
“We always get thank you letters from the kids, and they seem to really be happy to get them,” Inman said.
“So we keep coming back and if there is more we can do, we will.”
The Mount Baker Lodge meets at 7 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month. For more information, phone Inman at 360-379-9505.
For more information on the Odd Fellows statewide, see www.ioofwa.org.
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Reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladailynews.com.