Good Shepherd Rehabilitation has been awarded $25,000 as part of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation National Paralysis Resource Center 2023 Direct Effect 2nd Cycle Quality of Life grants. Fifty-nine grants totaling $1,271,125 were awarded.

The Quality of Life Grants Program supports nonprofit organizations that empower people living with paralysis. Since the Quality of Life Grants Program’s inception, more than 3,770 grants totaling $43 million have been awarded. Funding for this program was made possible through a cooperative agreement with the Administration for Community Living.

The Direct Effect grants program funds organizations to support a wide range of projects and activities that will impact individuals living with paralysis and their families.

Good Shepherd will use the grant to continue providing specially trained exercise physiologist services, helping Optimal Fitness at Good Shepherd members with paralysis reach their fitness goals.

“As the only adaptive fitness center within a 95-mile radius of the Lehigh Valley, Optimal Fitness provides an adaptive environment and structure for patients with complex neurological conditions, such as spinal cord injury, to continue progressing and promoting recovery supplemental to their therapy and also following discharge from formal therapy,” said James Kelley, PT, DPT, OCS, Outpatient Regional Manager at Good Shepherd.

Good Shepherd currently has dozens of members who utilize the gym, located on the first floor of Good Shepherd’s Hyland Center for Health & Technology, 850 S. 5th St., Allentown.

To learn more about Optimal Fitness, call 610-776-3167 or visit https://www.goodshepherdrehab.org/location/optimal-fitness-at-good-shepherd/.