A Low-Tech Lesson on 'Good Character'

Today's kids are well-versed in technology, but an ongoing project by the Hillsborough Rotary Club intorduces third-grade students to a low-tech lesson in community service.

This week, club members are visiting Hillsborough and Manville schools, presenting each third-grade student with a tool some of the students found interesting: a Merriam-Webster dictionary.

The students—already familiar with the Rotary Club's projects like the Rotary Fair that helps raise the funds used to provide the dictionaries—also learned the definition of "charity," which they were asked to look up in their new dictionaries.

"We do this to support the community—and we support our third-graders," Rotary Club member Greg Burchette told Hillsborough Elementary School students Wednesday, before club members distributed the volumes.

He said the club's purpose is to help provide support to people who need help, using funds collected in events like the fair.

"We use that money to give away," Burchette said. "Let's say someone's house is burned down in a fire and they need help to rebuild it—we give them some money."

HES students were introduced to the club members by Principal Mike Volpe, who related the club's activities to the students in terms they could understand.

"We talk a lot in school about 'good character,'" Volpe said. "I have a lot of representatives of a group in town who demonstrate 'good character' all the time."

Joining Burchette to help hand out the dictionaries Wednesday were Club President Phil Barrood, Doris Bruguier, Joey Himelfarb, Gerald Monahan, John Shockley, Dale Roller, Heinz Keller and Mike Dudzinski.