Bridgerland Literacy has joined Utah State University’s Center for Persons With Disabilities (CPD).

Bridgerland Literacy’s Program Director Alice Shepherd explained the mission of Bridgerland Literacy.

“We are an adult literacy program,” she said. “We help individuals from the age 16 and up improve their reading skills, their writing skills, their math skills. And we help them just move past whatever difficulty they have.”

She said in the late-1980s Bridgerland Literacy was housed in the Logan Library, then moved to Bridgerland Technical College.

She said people may have forgotten they were around.

“We just want to get the word out that we really are here, we’re still here, we’re still helping,” she explained. “This has been going for 30 years. We haven’t given up. We’re here to help; we just want you to know.”

Shepherd hopes that joining with CPD, the number of both people served and volunteer tutors will grow.

Services at Bridgerland Literacy are free and confidential.

She said functional illiteracy rates in Cache Valley are between 11 and 14 percent, which includes 15,000 people.

Even with the new affiliation with CPD, their offices will remain at Bridgerland Technology College’s West Campus.