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He said the need to do something beneficial in Matthew’s honor superseded the sadness he and his wife felt over their son’s death.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