Project Combines Horses and Therapy
4/16/2001
Riding horses generally is easy for mentally and physically disadvantaged persons, former President Ronald Reagan told this writer in a White House conversation on June 13, 1986.
“The riders move with the horse’s motion and are relaxed,” Reagan said to this reporter and four others assigned to his table at a media luncheon.
The conversation covered numerous subjects – including his late 1940s visits to York and Gettysburg as a Hollywood representative of General Electric plants.
The horses and Reagan’s keen interest in them, along with the value of horseback riding by persons with mental or physical problems, outweighed all other parts of our conversation.
It is the one part of that two-hour luncheon that remains indelible in my mind and served as a reminder when a press release about a new York County project, “Leg Up Farm,” was received in the mail from its chairman, Lou Castriota, Jr. of Glen Rock.
Horse therapy is one therapeutic service for children with special needs, including those with congenital defects, accident victims and those with developmental or cognitive disorders.
“Leg Up” will provide other services, including speech, physical, occupational, recreational, music, art and aqua therapy.
The program will take place at the Warren Eco-Farm property, owned by Barbara Warren, on North Sherman Street Extended in East Manchester Township.
Warren, also an ecologist, donated the land.
“Leg Up Farm” received a $60,0000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to cover first-year operating expenses and fund necessary expenses.
“It is therapy in a farm environment, will employ a staff of 25 and will open in the year 2004,” Castriota tells Around Town.
“President Reagan is right when he talks about horses and disadvantaged persons. The movement of the horses blends with these riders, who gain confidence and self-esteem,” says Castriota, a horse lover whose wife, the former Laura Reed, is a horse show competitor.
By 2003, a groundbreaking ceremony will be held, and, in the meantime, the organization will seek $7.2 million. Insurance benefits for rehabilitation of the disadvantaged persons will help pay for the operating expenses, says Castriota, a Fox-TV Baltimore salesperson.
It is expected to be the first comprehensive pediatric therapy center in the United Sates, destined to draw national attention and support. It will provide services for thousands of special needs children and families in Central Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland.
Around Town readers interested in contributing to the program should send checks to Leg Up Farm, Inc., PO Box 345, York 17405-0345. For more details, phone 843-8341.
By HARRY McLAUGHLIN, Around Town - The York Dispatch