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Interact Club members assist elementary students

2 min read

Third graders at Cape Elementary sat through a personal lesson on how to use a dictionary from members of the Interact Club at Cape Coral High.
Each year the Rotary Club of Cape Coral donates one dictionary for every third grade student in Lee County, and Wednesday they were visited by 28 high school students who taught them how to look up different words.
Debra Horn’s class looked up different animals, fruits and if “seahawk” — the mascot for both Cape Elementary and Cape Coral High — is in the dictionary.
“The Rotarians all give every third grader a dictionary in the fall,” said Assistant Principal Maggie McErlane. “Now this group comes to do a lesson to the third grade.”
Dr. Steven Maxwell, a teacher at Cape Coral High, said the Interact Club started at the school in the early 1980s, and that he’s been advisor since 1988.
“Interact Club is the youth club of Rotary. They are the high school leadership service group,” he said. “The motto of our club is service above self.”
Student members of Interact Club helped with the St. Jude’s Cancer Walk in Estero, the Cape Coral Art Festival and they are active at the high school in academics, athletics and other extracurricular activities.
Courtney O’Day, a junior and first year member of the Interact Club, assisted with Caleb Dierda with looking up words.
“We told them to look up adjectives and we found out that seahawk or osprey weren’t in the dictionary,” she said.
The club has been active in the community for so long, Maxwell said, that a second grade teacher at Cape Elementary named Laurie Dugas had been a member of the club from 1988 to 1990. And now she is a teacher at the elementary school allowing current Interact Club members to work with her students.
“It’s a rewarding experience for the students to be part of the program,” said Maxwell.