Lawrence Breakfast Optimist Club is helping about 900 children grasp the definition of community support for public education.

Thursday, Optimist members Dick Holzmeister and Leo Langlois passed out personalized dictionaries to each of the 17 students in fourth grade at New York School. They distributed nearly 97 dictionaries in the afternoon to fourth-graders at Eudora West Elementary.

“Our hope is that every kid will use it,” Holzmeister said. “It should help with reading and writing.”

Before the club’s barnstorming tour finishes in about a month, all fourth-graders in the Lawrence and Eudora public schools — an estimated 900 children — will be owners of a paperback dictionary with their name in the front.

“It’s part of the philosophy of Breakfast Optimist — friend of youth,” Langlois said.

The dictionaries were bought from the Dictionary Foundation of Charleston, S.C. It’s directed by Mary French, who is sometimes referred to as “Dictionary Lady.” French has made it her calling to make certain a dictionary is given to 55,000 South Carolina children upon entering third grade.

Her program has expanded to at least 17 states. So far, about 700,000 dictionaries have been donated to students.

Holzmeister said the Optimist Club received financial support from Lawrence-area banks to help pay the $1.45 price of each dictionary.

“I think it’s a very generous act on their part,” said Sharen Steele, New York’s principal. “It really enhances the idea of educational achievement partners.”

Optimist Club members are longtime volunteers at the elementary school, 936 N.Y.

Rod Moyer, principal at Eudora West, said the dictionary project was kept a secret from students until the afternoon presentation. However, teachers were given notice of the plan.

“The teachers were ecstatic,” Moyer said.