RETTEW’s Shaun Bentz and Leigh-Ann Fahnestock (right) award a $5,000 check to Jen Hitz, Chief Development Officer at Leg Up Farm (left)

The RETTEW Charitable Foundation proudly awarded Leg Up Farm with a $5,000 grant to help support a STEM program they are implementing as part of the New Visions program. The project will allow Leg Up Farm’s therapy staff to integrate STEM concepts into their sessions with students attending Leg Up Farm’s special education classrooms.

This program is intended for older, higher-functioning students with special needs and focuses on independent living skills and workforce readiness. Two goal areas they would like their school-based occupational and speech therapists to focus on are improving the students’ time management and task completion skills. Because these skills focus on sequencing or following a particular order, they are incorporating technology, coding, and robotics into the instruction, as it provides fun, incentivized ways for students to practice order completion. Preliminarily, Leg Up Farm’s therapists would like to incorporate Ozobots, OSMOs, iPads, and Watchminders, along with other related resources, into their efforts.

For the proposed project, Leg Up Farm is using RETTEW funds to purchase necessary STEM supplies and provide each student with a half-hour of one-on-one, STEM-supported speech and occupational therapy weekly. They anticipate this occurring in the second half of the 2021-22 school year as well as the first half of the 2022-23 school year. The project will culminate with RETTEW providing hands-on support to facilitate a STEM Challenge Day.

Just as RETTEW does for our clients, Leg Up Farm provides comprehensive, creative solutions to families all under one roof. It is a warm, welcoming, and fun environment that promotes learning, confidence, and inclusion. The goal of incorporating STEM into the New Visions program aligns perfectly with RETTEW’s expertise in engineering, planning, and design.

Located in Mount Wolf, PA, Leg Up Farm’s mission is to enrich the lives of individuals and families with special needs and unique challenges, through support and customized programs. To-date, Leg Up Farm has served more than 3,500 children who reside in central Pennsylvania, particularly the counties of York, Lancaster, Dauphin, Cumberland, and Adams. Visit www.legupfarm.org to learn more.