Without hope, there is nothing. Services that provide hope where there once was none or little can be life changing.

Now I Can Foundation deals in the business of hope.

"Only God can make miracles happen," said Allison Ebersole, Now I Can's executive director. "But we're helping make miracles happen, and we're giving families hope. The sooner we can (start working with) kids, the better chance we have of making a change."

Located at 100 W. Millport Road, Lititz, Now I Can Foundation Northeast aims to provide hope to families with children disabled by disorders like cerebral palsy, spina bifida and other gross motor delays and genetic conditions. The results don't lie.

"Some of our patients come in not walking. Some leave walking. Some leave running," said Ebersole. "I love being able to see the change that the therapists can make. I like being able to connect with families. I love when moms cry, because that was me with my daughter. They're tears of happiness. Until you live it, you can't understand it. I've been in a similar boat for 16 years."

The secret to the Now I Can Foundation's success is the relatively basic concept of intensive physical therapy. It's similar to regular physical therapy, only ramped up a few intensity notches.

At Now I Can, pediatric patients condense 57 hours of physical therapy into a three-week period, something like four hours a day, five days a week, depending upon the age of the patient and the condition. Many traditional models offer 40 hours of physical therapy a year - 45-minute sessions once a week for 48 weeks.

"Children with neurological challenges need repetitions and they need thousands of repetitions," said Ebersole. "It's that concentrated effort that makes a difference. It's teaching the brain new paths to do things in a different way."

Now I Can's intensive physical therapy is designed for patients between the ages of 10 months and 18 years. Partly due to the intensive nature of the therapy, Now I Can treats between two and eight patients during any three-week time frame.

Those patients reside in Lancaster County and the surrounding counties of Lebanon, York, Dauphin and Bucks. Thirty percent of Now I Can's kids come from outside of Pennsylvania.

"They are children whose parents have hope for them to be able to reach goals others have thought impossible for them," said Ebersole. "There are very few providers who use intensive physical therapy around. We're the only one in the state of Pennsylvania. There's an extreme need for it. One of the biggest problems we have is that locally people don't know that we exist. To me, that's a really big issue. As much as we want to help the world, we really want to help local families."

Among the 10 individuals that Now I Can employs, two practice physical therapy on a full-time basis, and two practice it on a part-time basis. The foundation accepts insurance and makes grants available to families that apply and meet eligibility requirements.

"When some of our patients come here, they can't do certain things," said Ebersole. "When they're here, we hear kids say, 'Now I can.' We hear it from parents too. We have kids coming here needing walkers and then not having to use walkers anymore."

Now I Can Foundation Northeast opened its doors in 2022 after borrowing some of its treatment models from Now I Can Foundation in Orem, Utah. Ebersole's daughter Lauren, now 16, made significant progress in her experience with cerebral palsy during family visits to Now I Can in Utah when she was younger.

"This year is a pivotal year for (Now I Can) because we've really been growing," said Ebersole. "Each year we've been growing, and we have tons of space. We're looking to add more therapists so we can treat more kids. We want to help kids with disabilities reach their full potentials."

For additional information, go to http://www.nowican.org.