Flo and Rusty Adopted From RVHR.

Some serious horseplay

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/251709

The parents of several area children with special needs are trying to secure grants to build Katie’s Place, a residential facility for disabled adults who want to live on a farm.

By Sarah Bruyn Jones
981-3264

REBECCA BARNETT The Roanoke Times

Annie Parrish, 21, laughs after Rusty nuzzles her hair Saturday. Parrish’s mother, Joy, is a chairwoman on the board for Katie’s Place and said the group is not planning an institution, but a self-sustaining community.

Lauren Barbour, 21, of Roanoke, pets Flo, a rescued quarter horse, at an event to raise awareness for Katie’s Place on Saturday.

Photos by REBECCA BARNETT The Roanoke Times

Maggie Moen of Roanoke helps Geoffrey Weaver, 21, walk one of Moen’s two horses. Moen is on the board of directors for Katie’s Place, an organization to help adults with special needs. The organization’s ultimate goal is to buy a farm for the adults to live and work on.

When Annie Parrish was a child, she collected anything related to a farm and put it in a big binder.

She called the binder her dream book, and the farm was her dream farm.

Now, at 21, Parrish spends hours a day playing a Facebook game called FarmVille. It’s a virtual farm, but what she really wants to do is spend time on a real farm.

The dream of living on a farm may become a reality if Parrish’s mother and several others are successful in establishing Katie’s Place.

On Saturday, Parrish got to have a taste of her dream as she spent time with two horses — feeding, walking, petting and grooming them. The event was for a handful of families with special needs children and was among the first sponsored by Katie’s Place. It was intended to raise awareness about the group’s plan to run a farm for adults with developmental disabilities.

The nonprofit Katie’s Place for Persons with Special Needs was formed through the State Corporation Commission in September 2005. The original idea was to provide therapy programs with animals to young adults with disabilities, said Louise Dillon, who helped found the organization.

Katie’s Place has since blossomed into a plan to open a residential facility on a farm for people with developmental disabilities. The residents would help maintain the farm’s crops and animals, and produce from the farm would be sold at local farmers markets.

“What really happened is I started to worry,” said Dillon, who cares for her 13-year-old granddaughter Jessica. “What’s going to happen when I no longer can provide care for her.”

Parrish’s mother, Joy Parrish, added, “It’s all of our greatest worry. It’s awful, but in some ways you hope they die before you do, because you don’t know who is going to care for them.”

Annie Parish has cerebral palsy. Jessica Dillon is autistic. Joy Parrish and Louise Dillon are chairwomen of the board for Katie’s Place.

For Robin Ranger, Katie’s Place can’t come soon enough. Her daughter, Lauren Barbour, has Down syndrome. She graduated high school two years ago — only to be deemed unemployable, Ranger said.

She said finding activities that interest and stimulate Barbour, 21, has been difficult.

“Up until she graduated high school, the services are fantastic,” Ranger said. “And then there is nothing, except Goodwill.”

But Goodwill didn’t appeal to mother or daughter, and other options have been scarce.

“I want my daughter to have an enjoyable life,” Ranger said. “She doesn’t want to sit in the den all day and watch TV. Who wants to do that?”

Like the others at Saturday’s event, Barbour has a connection to animals. She eagerly held out her hand with an apple slice to feed one of the two horses. Barbour giggled as the horse’s tongue and lips quickly snatched the food from her palm.

When Annie Parrish first spotted the horses, she hurried over to pet the animals. Her smile continued to grow as she talked about the animals and the possibility of living on a farm.

“I’ll have my own,” she said, describing a future life on the Katie’s Place farm.

There is still a lot of work to be done before she is living on a farm with her own horse.

The Katie’s Place board is working on applying for multiple grants through the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, and they still have to be licensed through the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, a process that takes a year.

One grant application should be completed by September, and the board has a young man from the AmeriCorps Vista program who will begin working with them in July full time to help with several initiatives, Joy Parrish said. His first task will be to launch a website.

“To tell you the truth, there were times I didn’t know if this would ever be more than a pipe dream,” Joy Parrish said. “But this is happening. Things are happening.”

The group also has identified a place in Botetourt County that might work for the farm. No contract is in the works yet, so they didn’t want to give the exact location, but it has more than 40 acres and is listed for around $450,000.

They hope to use the state grants to purchase the property.

Once land is purchased, Katie’s Place will initially open for day services. A residential home for about six people, and a provider, would be the next step. After that, Katie’s Place would add additional homes to meet the demand.

“We are trying to build a community,” Joy Parrish said. “We are not trying to build an institution. … Ultimately, it is going to be self-sustained.”