Schreiber Pediatric reaches Stabler grant fundraising goal

April 1, 2017

Schreiber Pediatric Rehab Center, Lancaster County-based provider of pediatric therapy services throughout central Pennsylvania, achieved its fundraising goal of receiving $250,000 from community supporters, money that matched a $250,000 grant from the Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation to fund an expansion of the center’s child care facilities.

The $500,000 donation is the largest gift in the 80-year history of the Center. The money is being used to add an infant room to Schreiber’s Circle of Friends Academy child care. Circle of Friends currently serves children as young as 12 months. The expansion would provide space for a fully inclusional room, where children with and without special needs will receive care. Serving this group of children is a natural extension of the services Schreiber provides, and there’s a critical shortage of providers offering child care to infants with special needs.

“There have been many examples throughout Schreiber’s history of the community supporting our work with their dollars,” said James DeBord, president of Schreiber Pediatric. “None is more appreciated than the support we received for this project. We know there is a constant shortage of space for families seeking child care services, and that’s especially true for families that have infants with special needs. We can now help those families, thanks to the community’s generosity.”

Jennifer Greenberg, a former Schreiber parent, provided the kickoff matching contribution in September 2016, a $25,000 gift in honor of her late husband Jim Greenberg. Other major funders for the project included: Bates Enterprises Inc., the Ferree Foundation, the Gamber Foundation, the Kiwanis Club of Lititz, the Robert J. Gunterberg Charitable Foundation, the S. Dale High Family Foundation and Edward and Kathy Schoenberger.

Renovations to prepare the new space started in March and should be completed by early June. Circle of Friends has started accepting enrollments and hiring staff. There will be an open house in early summer to introduce the space to the community. The official open date will be later in the summer.

Schreiber began offering day care services inside the Center in 2009 and currently serves about 50 children a week in the program. The money from the Stabler Foundation and the community will allow children as young as 6 weeks to enroll in Circle of Friends, once the room is fully operational, and bring our weekly enrollment to nearly 70 children.

The expanded child care services fit well with Schreiber’s existing capabilities. In addition to the core services of occupational, physical and speech therapy, Schreiber also offers infant massage, baby signing and aquatic therapy services on site – all services that no other provider of infant care in the region can offer.

The Stabler Foundation was established by Donald and Dorothy Stabler in 1966 exclusively for charitable, religious, scientific, literary or educational purposes, and one of its focus areas has been to support organizations that serve people who are mentally, physically or developmentally impaired or disabled, according to the foundation’s website.

Schreiber Pediatric is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization that provides physical, occupational and speech-language therapies, as well as educational and recreational programs for thousands of children in Central PA living with congenital and acquired disabilities and developmental delays. Our goal-oriented approach maximizes each child’s ability to function as independently as possible within the community and turn disabilities into abilities. For more information, please visit www.schreiberpediatric.org.