More than 30 years ago, Joanne Wyss and her Swiss-born husband, Karl, began spending more time in Southwest Florida. She, a longtime communications executive with McKinsey Consulting in New York, and he, a retired business executive, had also lived in Zurich and London before they decided to call Naples home.

The Wysses became deeply involved in several philanthropic areas in Naples, with special focus on three fields: health care, performing arts and early childhood education.

Karl suffered from heart disease, and after surviving multiple life-threatening scares, the couple became personally motivated to invest in the future of health care, specifically heart, stroke and vascular care. This dedication resulted in committing more than $3.5 million — so far — to the Naples Comprehensive Health capital campaign for its heart, stroke and vascular center.

Joanne Wyss credits NCH for saving Karl’s life on “a number of occasions” — and, she said, “We wanted to make sure that people could continue to get first-class treatment here in Naples.”

Her husband succumbed to heart disease in 2022, but Joanne continues her dedication to ensuring the best possible care is available for all residents of Southwest Florida, and giving people the confidence to settle here with the assurance of outstanding health care as they age in place.

Giving kids a head start with books

But health care wasn’t the only philanthropic arena where the Wysses invested their time and financial support that resulted in a lasting legacy. Another of their key passions — early childhood education — led to the founding of what is now known as Books for Collier Kids, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2025 and which has distributed more than two million free books to students in Title I schools, where 75% or more of students are on the free or reduced-cost meal program.

In 2004, while Karl and Joanne were volunteering in a tutoring program at Manatee Elementary School, they became aware that many of the kids were from families where English was not the first language, or they did not have access to books at home.

Through a friend, Joanne Wyss became aware of a national program called First Book, which provided books to disadvantaged children through schools and other organizations.

“They were able to get books at very low prices through overruns and special production runs,” Wyss recalled in a recent interview. “She and I talked about this and put a small group together and co-founded a chapter of that First Book organization, which we called First Book Collier.”

That was in 2005, and the program started with book distributions to pre-K students in Title I schools in Collier County. Literacy champion Alma Powell, the wife of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, was involved with the national First Book effort and came to Naples for the launch of First Book Collier, reading to the pre-K kids in their classrooms.

“The kids were over the moon,” Wyss remembered. “They couldn’t believe that we gave them each a book, with their name in it. Many of them had never had a book before, and they certainly never had a book with their name written in the front. Many of these kids had never had anything new of their own.”

Wyss, who chaired the program for the first 11 years and remains on the board as director emerita, said she “still gets chills” when she thinks about the kids’ reactions.

“After they went down for their naps, Mrs. Powell and a few of us went to the room where they were napping, and they were on their little mats with their little blankets over them,” Wyss said. “And every child was clutching the book to his or her chest. It was just the most touching thing.”

The program distributed 7,000 books to pre-K students only during the first year. Now, Wyss said, Books for Collier Kids provides one free, age-appropriate book per month during the school year to every disadvantaged child from pre-K and kindergarten to first and second grades in Title I schools in the county. The books are tied to the curriculum the students will be working on in the classroom.

By 2018, according to First Book Collier’s website, the organization had distributed more than 1 million books, and last year distributed 159,000. “We also have been able, through the generosity of the community, to add in a summer program,” Wyss said. “A lot of these kids, when they’re not in school — it’s called ‘summer slide,’ and it happens to all kids, but it’s particularly a problem for children from low-income families where their reading skills begin to slide. So, we now give about 20,000 to 30,000 books a year in summer programs that are run by a lot of our partners in the community, where kids can get a steady supply of books over the summer.”

Among the organizations partnering with Books for Collier Kids, Wyss said, are Collier County Public Schools, the Boys & Girls Club of Collier County, Collier County Sheriff’s Office, Fostering Success, Future Ready Collier, Gargiulo Education Center, Grace Place, Guadalupe Center and Immokalee Habitat for Humanity.

Wyss said the upcoming 20th anniversary is particularly meaningful to her because the program involves many memories of her late husband working with the children they tutored at Manatee Elementary. She recalled how they would walk the children from their classrooms to the school library for the tutoring sessions.

“Karl had the greatest joy in walking from the library to the next classroom to bring the next batch of kids,” she said. “He just loved being with these kids and helping them. We had all these exercises where we would read and play games that related to the stories that were in the book. And every kid wanted to hold his hand on the way from the classroom to the library. He would have six kids, and they were all trying to hold his hand. It was really just one of the sweetest things.”