Charity connects adaptive tricycles for kids with developmental disorders

Naples

Samantha Garcia, 11, tries out her adaptive tricycle with the assistance of Claire Le Bouleng, a pediatric physical therapist, on Wednesday, June 28, 2017, at the rehabilitation center at Golisano Children's Hospital. The Nicklaus Children's Health Center has been working with the Save The Kid Fund to provide adaptive tricycles to children with developmental issues like Samantha, who has cerebral palsy. The tricycles help with motor skills, socialization and provide physical therapy.

Samantha Garcia can’t experience the same joys as kids who don’t have disabilities, but her family and therapists power on and do what they can.

On Wednesday they did just that when 11-year-old Samantha, who has cerebral palsy, was lifted onto an adaptive tricycle for the first time and taken on a guided ride around the ground floor of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center at the Golisano/Nicklaus Children’s Health Center in Naples.

“I think it will help a lot,” her mother, Michelle Garcia, said.

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She envisions Samantha and her two brothers Zachary, 7, and Taylor, 12, being able to spend some time outside together on their bikes.

The adaptive tricycle was donated to the family by a local charity, Save The Kid Fund, which is based in Naples and Connecticut, said Claire Le Boulenge, a physical therapist with the rehabilitation center.

Samantha has never been on a tricycle before, and it will take some work for her to use it, but she did smile. Samantha does not have verbal skills.

“She seems to like it,” Le Boulenge said.

Samantha Garcia, 11, holds hands with Claire Le Bouleng, a pediatric physical therapist, as she holds onto the bars of her new adaptive tricycle on Wednesday, June 28, 2017, at the rehabilitation center at Golisano Children's Hospital. The Nicklaus Children's Health Center has been working with the Save The Kid Fund to provide adaptive tricycles to children with developmental issues like Samantha, who has cerebral palsy. The tricycles help with motor skills, socialization and provide physical therapy.

The charity reached out to Le Boulenge about helping local children, and it ended up funding nine adaptive tricycles for kids with developmental disabilities through the center.

Each tricycle costs $2,500 to $3,000 where different components are ordered to meet the needs of each child, which can include a chest harness to help keep a child secure or special handle bars and foot braces, she said.

The adaptive tricycles provide fun and important range-of-motion therapy to help reduce tightness in joints for kids who use wheelchairs, Le Boulenge said.

Jack Johannemann, treasurer of the charity and a part-time Naples resident, said the charity has donated 13 adaptive tricycles or bicycles for children with developmental disabilities in Southwest Florida since March.

The charity was started in Preston, Connecticut, 30 years ago, and it has donated more than $1 million to benefit children with needs, including cancer.

The assistance can range from summer camp to bicycles, he said, and every request is evaluated by the board. Johannemann is semiretired and worked in Connecticut as a nuclear construction specialist.

When he moved to Naples for the winter months, he added a Florida registration for the charity.

Samantha Garcia, 11, gets strapped into her adaptive tricycle with the assistance of her mother, Michelle, left, and Claire Le Bouleng, a pediatric physical therapist, on Wednesday, June 28, 2017, at the rehabilitation center at Golisano Children's Hospital. The Nicklaus Children's Health Center has been working with the Save The Kid Fund to provide adaptive tricycles to children with developmental issues like Samantha, who has cerebral palsy. The tricycles help with motor skills, socialization and provide physical therapy.

So far in Florida, there has been some private donations and a couple of grant awards to continue helping children. The needs of local kids with special needs because of disabilities is vast, he said.

“We can always find the children; finding funds is the hard part,” he said.

Garcia said the rehabilitative center has been great with Samantha but that the family is moving back soon to their hometown, Miami.

Samantha will be able to return to the private school she had been attending previously that allows therapists to be fully involved. Last year she attended Poinciana Elementary School, Garcia said.

For more information about Save The Kid Fund, visit the website, www.savethekid.org.