EVANS CITY — While the Evans City Rotary Club next week will hand out 120 dictionaries to Evans City Elementary’s third graders, their commitment to the school and to education goes on all year long.

Lee Dyer, a club member and a past Rotary district governor, said the club conducts four programs a year at the Evans City Elementary/Middle School.

“Rotary is very connected to education,” Dyer said.

He explained the dictionaries are given to the students to take home in the interest of helping them with language, spelling, definitions and other school work.

“At Evans City, you would be surprised at how many students tell us that this is the only book they own,” Dyer said.

He said Rotary members go into each of the six third-grade classrooms at the school and give a 10- to 15-minute presentation on the dictionary and how to use it. The students are then asked to look up words, and the Rotary members award prizes to the fastest students.

Dyer said several Evans City Rotary members in March will read the book “The Great Apple Dumpling Adventure” to second graders at the school. He said the book is based on Rotary International’s four-way test:

• Is it true?

• Is it fair to all concerned?

• Does it build goodwill?

• Is it beneficial to all concerned?

“We are working to help parents and teachers teach the values of making decisions in life based on those principals,” Dyer said.

Later in the year, Evans City Rotary members for one day will take over the entire fifth grade at the school, where they will teach a Junior Achievement class.

Dyer said the presentation is aimed at encouraging adolescents to begin considering what job they may want to do in life. The presentation describes careers and how a young person goes about getting involved in it.

Throughout the year, the Rotary Club honors 10 students by naming them Student of the Month.

The winning student each month has his name and photograph displayed on the door to their classroom.

“All the students, teachers and parents get to see that for the entire month,” Dyer said.

He said teachers nominate the students based on not only educational success, but on helpfulness, manners, attitude and other features of a positive character.

“Those kind of characteristics that we like our Rotarians to have,” Dyer explained.

At the end of the school year, each of the 10 students gets a certificate and a Rotary pin at a dinner at the school by the Rotary Club. Students can invite any family members, teachers or staff they want to the dinner.

Rotarians, teachers and the principal speak at the dinner, but the 10 students also must give a 60-second presentation about themselves.

“They dress up, and we recognize them,” Dyer said. “Rotary for most of its life has been very engaged in schools. Our students are our future, and we take that very seriously.”

He said school officials, who educate students in grades kindergarten through six in the Seneca Valley School District, have been eager to support Rotary in its school programs.

“You could not ask for better cooperation,” Dyer said.