The Reading Recovery Council of North America will present Veronica Brady, senior vice president for philanthropy at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, with its 2018 Excellence in Literacy Leadership Award. The award recognizes Brady’s role in implementing and expanding Reading Recovery in Sarasota County Schools and promoting the successful literacy program beyond the region. Reading Recovery is an intensive, short-term intervention for first graders struggling to learn to read and write. Specially trained literacy teachers provide daily individual lessons designed to accelerate students’ progress to grade level within 20 weeks. Brady lined up seed capital to launch the program in Sarasota and eventually led the expansion of the program to all 23 Sarasota County elementary schools.