Edward McDonnell, Chair, Larc School Board of Directors
By Edward McDonnell
A couple of months ago I was watching on TV the annual induction ceremony for the National Football League Hall of Fame. One after another, great champions and team owners were presented with beautiful bright gold jackets, symbolizing their special contributions that have made the NFL one of the most successful enterprises ever. So grateful is the NFL to these individuals, that a bronze bust of each of them was unveiled—and will forever line the hallways at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
With Larc’s 50th Anniversary on my mind, I couldn’t help thinking as I watched the induction ceremony, that there ought to be a Hall of Fame for Larc—a place to honor all the champions who took Larc from its humble beginnings to what it is today. After all, changing the lives of literally hundreds of children with disabilities and their families is at least as noteworthy as catching a football 2,000 times, or making a team worth millions of dollars more than when you bought it.
In the Larc Hall of Fame, there would be an award category called “Amazing Vision.” Gold jackets would go to those young parents who, so many years ago, first envisioned the whole idea of a place like Larc.
Back then, there were a few programs able and willing to help children with disabilities, but only a few—the more severe the disability, the fewer the options. And the idea of a program for children who couldn’t even walk was almost unheard of. Sadly, many profoundly disabled children grew into adulthood without ever leaving their homes. It was a time when parents grew older and wearier as they struggled, all alone, to cope with the exhausting demands of caring for a child they loved, but could not help. I think often about those families, and wish they could have had Larc. How different their lives would have been.
It was in that environment that the “League to Aid Retarded Children” (L.A.R.C.) began. It was conceived by parents who would not accept that what had always been, must forever be. Through some amazing combination of courage and desperation, those intrepid Moms and Dads confronted the heartbreaking reality of their children, and decided that, whatever it took, they had to make their lives better.
No one would have believed in 1968, least of all those pioneering parents, that what they started would eventually become the amazing place we now call Larc.
Gold jackets to all of them!
If Larc had a Hall of Fame honoring its greatest champions, it would include people like Judy Aiken, Ross Angilella, Reggie Beckett, Bellmawr Boro, Mayor, & Council, Wayne Bryant, Carol Parker-Elbert, Barbara Furstein, Jim Gale, Lou Greenwald, Rick Hardenbergh, Chas Higgins, Patricia Egan Jones, Jim Madden, Tom McDonnell, Barbara Neidermayer, George Norcross, Pepe PiPerno, Paul Porado, Walter Rand, Jim Rhodes, Joe Roberts, Sammy Ross, Frank Spencer, Geri Spencer, Dick Vermeil, Susan Weiner, and so many others whose names we do not even know.
These are the legends of Larc. Champions, every one. Gold jackets to all of them!
And then there are all those generous benefactors who, over all these years, have golfed for the kids, walked or ran the Ben Franklin Bridge for the kids, or volunteered, or donated money to make sure these events were beyond successful. They are champions too. Because of all of them, our families sleep well at night, knowing this glorious, life-changing place called Larc will still be there tomorrow.
Gold jackets to each of them!
In the category of “There Would Be No Larc Without Them,” bright gold Larc Hall of Fame jackets surely would go to every teacher, therapist, and classroom aide who, every day, dedicates heart, soul, and loving hands, not to scoring touchdowns, but to touching the lives of all those precious children who so need that touch.
No signing bonuses, no multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts, no endorsement deals—just modest compensation and the gratitude of every parent, guardian, and student who ever called Larc home.
We probably should celebrate this 50th Anniversary by lining the hallways of Larc with bronze busts of all those humble teachers, therapists, and aides. But if we were to suggest that, I know what they all would say: “But where would the wheelchairs go?”
Happy Anniversary to Larc!
