Article published Aug 14, 2007 in the Herald Tribune
Rotary-donated dictionary ends up in Israel
BY NANCY CHAPMAN CORRESPONDENT

There was an unusual buzz going around the recent meeting of the Sarasota Keys Rotary Club.

The members, who have their annual effort to buy dictionaries for fourth graders on their minds, were surprised to hear that their efforts have touched a child in a foreign land -- one of their dictionaries made its way into the hands of a third-grade student in Israel.

Liliane Sealy-Schrock, protocol director of the Sarasota Sisters Cities Association, and a member of the Sarasota Keys Rotary Club, delivered the news.

She received an e-mail in late June from Tel Mond, Israel, one of Sarasota's sister cities: Michal Hoppenstein wrote to say that her daughter, Tali, who is in third grade at Ohr Torah School, had been given a dictionary with the Rotary Club's seal in it.

"Tali was so excited when she received the dictionary today, especially all the diagrams of the maps," wrote Hoppenstein. "I have wanted to get Tali an English children's dictionary for a while but living in Israel, they are not readily available in the bookstores here."

Tony Iannacone, a board member for the Rotary Club, said the members were excited, too. "Somehow or another one of these dictionaries got to Tel Mond Israel. We thought it was great," he said. "We passed it (the e-mail) around."

It was a timely message, as the club has just started ordering dictionaries for the kids. Iannacone estimated that the club buys at least a thousand dictionaries, and part of the work of distributing includes putting the Rotary's seal in each one.

This year they may buy a few more.

"We decided in our meeting that we were going to contact the mother of this young girl, and see how many kids (are in her class,)" Iannacone said, "and that we would probably send a dictionary to each of them this year."