SPRINGFIELD – The legacy of a Springfield area businessman lives on through a program he founded that puts a student edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary into the hands of fourth graders.

The late Edward M. Clark, a Longmeadow resident and the former owner of the Edward M. Clark & Associates Insurance Agency, passed away in 2014, but his work in encouraging literacy lives on through a program in Springfield maintained by the Western Massachusetts Community Foundation and the Springfield School Volunteers.

On June 1 two of Clark’s children, Cathy and Andy, met with Denise Cogman of the Springfield School Volunteers at the Kensington International School, to personally distribute the dictionaries to fourth graders.

The students clearly enjoyed having their own dictionary, designed in mind for elementary students.

Cathy Clark said, “There’s a lot of meaning to having your own dictionary.” She noted that although a printed dictionary may be seen as passé in 2018, not every child has access to a computer at home.

During the distribution, the fourth graders asked a number of questions why Edward Clark would start such a fund and expressed their thanks for the dictionaries.

According to information provided by Andy, his father worked as a school volunteer when he retired to Naples, FL. Volunteer work had been part of his life in Springfield and his efforts were recognized in 2002 when he received the William Pynchon Award.

He started handing out dictionaries as prizes for word competitions and convinced Merriam-Webster to create a dictionary for elementary and middle school use.

He then, with the help of the Education Foundation of Naples, distributed 12,000 of the dictionaries in Florida. To assist Springfield schools, he turned to the Western Massachusetts Community Foundation to establish a similar program here.

The funding was established in 2004 and the first release of the funds to buy the dictionaries was this year. This is the first year of the books being distributed.

Clark passed away in 2014.

Three schools received the books this year: Kensington International, Hiram L. Dorman Elementary School and the Daniel B. Brunton Elementary School. The three schools were selected due to their high rate of poverty.

Springfield School Volunteers commented in a written statement, “After learning more about the spirit behind why the fund was started and the family’s desire to perpetuate the fund, we also recommended that we design a bookplate to go in the front of the dictionaries. We designed a bookplate that was approved by the family, had the bookplates printed, and affixed the bookplates to the dictionaries. The dictionaries were separated and packed based on the number of fourth graders in each of the schools.

“We were finally able to coordinate our schedules with the Clark family so that they could be present when the dictionaries were given to the students in three of the schools selected to receive dictionaries this year. In the years to come other schools will receive dictionaries for their fourth grade students and eventually we hope to be able to provide dictionaries to students in other grades also.”