The Literacy Council of Bonita Springs is merging with Literacy Volunteers of Lee County to create the Literacy Council Gulf Coast. 

The non-profits serve more than 3,100 children and adult students in programs including basic reading and writing, computer literacy along with GED and U.S. citizenship test preparation courses.  The Moms and Tots family literacy program has parents learning English side- by- side with their children.

“We work very hard at the literacy council to try to reach those children while they’re still preschoolers and their mothers who may have come from countries where they had very little education or where literacy was not a very important part of it,” said executive director of the newly-formed council, Susan Acuna.

 “Reading to their children, for example, might not have been an important part of their parenting,” said Acuna.  “We send books home with the families where they can develop a library so that the children and their siblings will be encouraged to read and to learn to love reading.”

Resources and classes are all provided to students free of charge.  The organization is funded through grants and donations.

Before the organizations joined forces the Literacy Council of Bonita Springs was already one of the largest literacy organizations in the country.

A recent national assessment of adult literacy finds about 13 percent of adults in Lee County read below a basic literacy level.  The number is 17 percent in Collier County and 20 percent statewide.

Acuna said the merger will help expand the number of students served.