2002

York-based Leg Up Farm is getting $450,000 in tax credits to benefit York County businesses that contribute to the nonprofit group. The tax credits come from the state Department of Community and Economic Development's Neighborhood Assistance Program. Leg Up Farm provides comprehensive therapy programs to children with special needs in southern and central Pennsylvania. The group plans to build a new facility in East Manchester Township, York County, in 2004.

By Staff Reporter, Central Penn Business Journal

The planned Leg Up Farm children’s rehabilitation center is looking for a boost from local businesses, which could provide substantial tax benefits for contributors to the agency’s construction fund.

Leg Up Farm will host an information meeting at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Yorktowne Hotel to discuss how businesses can earn state tax credits for up to 50 percent of a charitable contribution to the agency. The meeting will feature Acting Secretary of Community and Economic Development Tim McNulty and other DCED staff members discussing the mechanics of the tax credits through the Neighborhood Assistance Program, which Leg Up Farm is enrolled in.

Tax credits: According to the DCED, the actual cost to contribute $10,000 to an agency in the Neighborhood Assistance Program is only $2,440 when state and federal income taxes are considered.

The credits against the state corporate net income tax can be carried forward five years if a donor cannot use them immediately.

The credits can also be used against other taxes, including the capital stock, foreign franchise, bank and trust company shares, gross premiums, mutual thrift institutions and title insurance taxes.

Pennsylvania originated the Neighborhood Assistance Program in 1967 to improve the lives of low-income people in distressed neighborhoods, according to the DCED. The program is intended to create a partnership between community-based organizations, such as Leg Up Farm, and the business community.

“It’s really a way for businesses to steer their tax dollars to a project that will make an impact in their local community,” said Lou Castriota, Jr., chairman of the Leg Up Farm board.

Leg Up Farm: Founded in 1997, Leg Up Farm is still trying to build a facility in order to begin operations.

According to its mission statement, it would provide a team of therapists to design individual programs for each child patient, utilizing a combination of traditional occupational, physical and speech therapies and progressive therapies. The progressive therapies would include sensory play, massage, aquatherapy and recreational activities, such as horseback riding and hiking.

Leg Up Farm would treat children with problems including cerebral palsy, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Down’s syndrome, mental retardation, learning disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, depression, abuse and pervasive development delay.

In March 2001, Leg Up Farm announced it had received a commitment from Barbara Warren allowing use of her 200-acre property in East Manchester Township. The agency plans to build a $9 million, 77,000 square-foot outpatient facility in the pastoral setting.

The center has been included on the state capital funding bill for $4.56 million, though the money has not been released to the agency. Castriota hopes Gov. Mark Schweiker’s administration will release the money before leaving office.

Castriota said Leg Up Farm has not set a date to begin its local capital campaign.

By CHARLIE YOUNG, The York Dispatch/Sunday News

The first Matthew Allen Potter Memorial Golf Tournament will be held at Heritage Hills Golf Resort, 2700 Mt. Rose Ave., York, Thursday, Sept. 19. Proceeds from the event will be donated to Leg Up Farm in York County and the Performing Arts for Children.

The four-person scramble will be limited to the first 36 teams or 144 individual golfers to register.

Package includes greens fees, cart, box lunch, and buffet dinner plus the chance to win numerous contests and prizes.

Corporate sponsorships and prize donations are being solicited. The buffet dinner, featuring door prizes and a silent auction, is open to the public starting at 5 p.m., based on advanced registration.

Matthew Allen Potter was a 7-year-old boy who died last September following a tragic accident at the York Fair. The tournament is named in his honor.

For more information on sponsoring and attending this nonprofit event, readers may call Deanna Croucher at Leg Up Farm at 843-8341. Leg Up Farm will offer a variety of therapeutic services to children with special needs. The facility is currently slated for completion in 2004 in East Manchester Township.

Performing Arts for Children, originally started by the Junior League of York, is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization dedicated to bringing quality, affordable live theater to children of all ages in southcentral Pennsylvania. This fall will mark 34 seasons of performances.

The Community Courier -- East Edition

Lou Castriota, Jr. says the York community is rallying behind Leg Up Farm, the facility he is trying to create to provide at one site almost any type of rehabilitative therapy a child might need.

Children attending a local vacation Bible school recently donated to Leg Up Farm, and a fundraising golf tournament is planned for September.

The farm Castriota envisions would offer traditional therapies – physical, speech and occupational – and the less traditional, including hippotherapy (horseback riding), aquatherapy, massage therapy and sensory play. His goal is to open the facility in 2004.

Castriota, 31, called the upcoming Matthew Allen Potter Memorial Golf Tournament “our first big public event and fundraiser – it’s really the next step for us.”

Named for victim: The event is named for the 7 year-old York Township boy who died in a ride accident at the York Fair last Sept. 10. The tournament will be held at Heritage Hills Golf Resort in Springettsbury Township, with proceeds benefiting Leg Up Farm.

Castriota was introduced to Matthew’s parents, Kenneth “Butch” Potter, Jr. and wife Janet, about two months ago by a mutual acquaintance, Jack Lehr of York Township. Lehr and his family, neighbors of the Potters, were with them at the fair the day Matthew was killed.

“In dealing with that . . . I wanted to turn that tragedy into a positive,” Lehr said.

“The whole plan seems to make a lost of sense,” Kenneth Potter, Jr. said of Castriota’s project. “A lot of times, parents have to go to one end of town for physical therapy and then drive to the other for speech therapy.”

He said the need to do something beneficial in Matthew’s honor superseded the sadness he and his wife felt over their son’s death.

“Knowing that something good will come out of it – it’s a better feeling than the empty feeling of him not being there,” he said.

Bible school: St. Paul Lutheran Church Hametown in Glen Rock used Leg Up Farm as the theme for its vacation Bible school in early June, Castriota said.

The children drew pictures of themselves helping children with special needs and pooled their money, eventually donating $213 to Leg Up Farm.

“It’s just amazing to me to see even young children come forward and offer their help and support,” Castriota said. “It just touches my heart, it really does.”

Castriota said Leg Up Farm was inspired by his 6 year-old daughter, Brooke, who is afflicted with mitochondrial disease, similar to cerebral palsy. As he sought various therapies for Brooke, he realized how much easier it would be to have many types of therapy in the same location.

The project received a boost last year when landowner Barbara Warren offered a portion of her 200-acre property on North Sherman Street Extended in East Manchester Township as a site for the proposed 77,000 square-foot facility.

Castriota said a capital campaign to raise $4.5 million will be initiated in 2003. It’s his hope that the state will match that money, to equal the $9 million he believes is needed for start-up and operating costs for the facility.

Two years ago, Leg Up Farm received a community development block grant for $62,405 – and Castriota said he is overseeing an engineering company’s land survey and grading plans, and an architect’s master plan.

By TED CZECH, The York Dispatch/Sunday News

The idea has been developed. The architectural plans have been drawn. The land has been found.

The next thing Lou Castriota, Jr. needs is money.

It’s been five years since Castriota conceived an idea for a pediatric therapy center that would focus on recreational activities. Now the York County resident is preparing to launch a capital campaign to raise the $7 million to $9 million needed so the nonprofit center – called Leg Up Farm – can open in East Manchester Township in 2004.

Leg Up Farm’s fundraising efforts have gotten a jump-start with a $60,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Castriota said he hopes the project will receive additional state funds in addition to the funds raised through the capital campaign.

“There’s a lot of fragmentation in therapy today,” he said. “We want to bring everything together under one roof and have a team approach to providing therapy to children.”

In early 1997, Castriota started developing a plan to establish a therapeutic horseback riding center for children with special needs. Castriota, who is the national sales manager for a Baltimore television station, said he grew up around horses and wanted to share his love of horseback riding with others.

Later that year, Castriota’s then 1-year-old daughter, Brooke, was diagnosed with mitochondria disorder. Castriota said the disorder affects his daughter’s motor skills, and her symptoms include balance problems and hand tremors. He said Brooke’s condition made him want to help more children, and he decided to expand his plans beyond horseback riding.

The result is Leg Up Farm, which Castriota said would offer a number of different styles of therapy for children, including speech therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy and art therapy. The center would offer recreation areas, such as hiking trails and a fishing pond accessible to people with disabilities.

Easter Seals South Central Pennsylvania already offers recreational therapy programs for children, said Matt Ernst, a recreational therapist for the York Township-based nonprofit. These programs include horseback riding, aquatic therapy and baseball programs.

The programs help the children become physically stronger and also help them build socialization skills and self-esteem, Ernst said.

“Therapy is hard, and it’s usually not fun,” Castriota said. “When you make therapy fun, the children are getting stronger without them even knowing it.”

In March 2001, Barbara Warren agreed to donate about 15 acres from her 200-acre East Manchester Township farm to serve as the home of Leg Up Farm, Castriota said. Plans call for a 77,000 square-foot center to be built on the site. The building will include an indoor horseback riding area, an aquatic therapy center, a library and classrooms, Castriota said. Leg Up Farm would have about 25 full-time employees, he added.

Leg Up Farm could be used by other York-area nonprofits so children with and without disabilities can interact with one another, Castriota said. “My true hope is that we can make this a success so that it can benefit the community,” he said.

The Central Penn BUSINESS JOURNAL