2022 Memorial Day Issue

Leo McLaughlin and Bruce Dunbar team up to
secure fencing in the chicken coop.
Michele, Rebecca and Dennis Elmers.
Volunteers prepare the garden for planting.
Helping Hands Turn a Family’s Dream into a Home
Story by ELLEN WILKOWE
Photos by KAREN FUCITO
Michele Elmers of Jefferson gestured to a
fresh wooden fence on an inviting and
vast 200-year-old property in Wantage.
“This was built in one day—by men who
usually wear suits during the week,” she
marveled.
She points to a wheelchair ramp built by
Habitat of Humanity of Sussex County that
allows access from the driveway to the allpurpose
room at the back of the barn.
Elmers enters one of the rooms in the barn
and directs her attention to a board containing a
growing list of names. “Everyone who volunteers
has their name here,” she said. “Everybody
counts.”
Next to the barn a group of volunteers paints a
future chicken coop the traditional barnyard red
on a warm sunny day in April that was equally
as conducive to outdoor work as it was to a
community gathering.
So, what exactly differentiates what may have
appeared as a spring cleaning and renovation that
often take place when a home changes hands?
If you ask Elmers and her husband, Dennis,
who purchased the property in January 2021,
they may simply reply with their daughter’s
name.
Welcome to Rebecca’s Homestead, a soonto-be
residential home and farm for adults with
developmental disabilities. Or, as the Elmers
prefer, “differently abled.”
The five-acre property, which features a twostory
farmhouse, a 3,500-square-foot barn, a
two-story detached garage and a driveway that
circles around a garden that stays in bloom
throughout the growing season, was not in bad
shape when purchased. But it needed special
adjustments to meet the needs of its future
residents.
Rebecca Elmers—Michele and Dennis’s
34-year-old daughter and one of four children—
is the family’s driving force behind their vision
of not only a home for their daughter, but also
a self-sustaining lifestyle through farming and
hospitality employment. Rebecca has good
company among her two brothers, Adam and
Andrew, and a younger sister, Maria.
“I’m scared but I like it,” said Rebecca as she
showed a visitor her new home. “But there are
not enough people. I want more people.”
Upon completion, Rebecca’s Homestead
will get “more people”—six co-ed adults with
developmental disabilities as well as a live-in
“house mother.” There will also be overnight
staff and four to eight additional adults to cover
the 24-hour shifts.
The property will also feature vegetable
gardens, a chicken coop and a goat pen that will
serve as the farming aspects. In the detached
garage, a consignment shop is being planned as
well as a space to display and sell artwork created
by the developmentally disabled community.
This decades-long dream would not have
been possible if not for the countless number of
volunteers and businesses who have pitched in
their time.
“We have been, with the help of over 250
volunteers, renovating the rooms, outside
gardens and walking areas, making things as
barrier-free as possible,” Michele said.
Rebecca was born in 1987 at what was then
Wayne General Hospital. Within an hour
of her birth and in critical condition, she was
medevacked to St. Joseph’s University Medical
Center in Paterson where she was placed on life
support.
At 18 months, she underwent heart surgery,
at age 2 she started attending a state-run
early intervention program for children with
disabilities and by age 5 she learned to walk.
With cerebral palsy, epilepsy and global
developmental disabilities, Rebecca will need
lifelong assistance.
Yet, the charismatic social butterfly, who
enjoys a good manicure, is very much like
everybody else, said her mom.
“She is very much a people person,” said
Elmers. “She likes to go to the movies, she likes
to stay up late, hang out with family and she
loves the beach.”
On that sunny Sunday in April, volunteers from
all over were busy pitching in where needed. Some
spruced up a new 1-mile trail at the back of the
property. Others put the finishing touches on the
chicken coop, cleaned windows or provided snacks
and drinks.
So, how did Rebecca’s Homestead, a registered
501(c)(3) nonprofit since 2017, come to fruition?
More than 4,000 adults with developmental
disabilities are on the waiting list for state-funded
group homes. The most recent list was produced
by the New Jersey Division of Developmental
Disabilities in May 2021 and is subcategorized into
a priority list and a general waiting list. The Elmers
said that while Rebecca is on the priority list, her
status is a low priority.
“We as parents just wait it out for our child’s
‘number’ to come up and that is exactly how it
is,” said Michele. “A letter is sent out once a year
to tell us where we are on the wait list and mostly
you move from your position in that number when
someone dies, a parent of a person dies or becomes
so deathly ill that the child is placed in an emergency
placement. No parent of a child like ours ever wants
that to happen.”
With such limiting options that might fall short
of meeting Rebecca’s individual needs for a selfdirected
life, the Elmers decided to take matters
into their own hands with the help of more than
250 handy heartfelt volunteers with plenty of elbow
grease to go around.
The recruitment of volunteers stemmed mainly
from the 2,000 letters the Elmers wrote when they
first launched their nonprofit. They reached out to
everyone they knew to grow interest in their vision.
As second-generation owners of Homestead Lawn
Sprinkler Co. in Jefferson, the Elmers had acquired
a large customer base to call on, as well as members
of their church, Grace Evangelical Church in Oak
Ridge, and friends and family. Word of mouth and
media postings took care of the rest—Rebecca’s
Homestead was recently featured in a two-part
News12 segment.
“This is a vision they had from when Rebecca was
a young age,” said Jeff Young of Jefferson, a longtime
22
LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Memorial Day 2022