Barbecue to benefit Franklin, Fulton retarded citizens

August 21, 1998|By RICHARD F. BELISLE

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - For much of the last 20 years Roger and Patti Tappen have cared for Nathan, their 21-year-old severely retarded son. They say he functions like a 2-month-old baby.

Their greatest salvation, Patti Tappen said, comes from free baby-sitting services provided by the Franklin/Fulton Association of Retarded Citizens. Without the service the Tappens and other area families like theirs could not leave their homes.

Hoping to repay ARC for its help over the years, Roger Tappen, a professional chef, has organized a fund-raising dinner to be held today from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the AMVETS pavilion at 750 Fifth Ave. in Chambersburg, Pa. Tickets are $12. He hopes to raise $5,000.

Tappen, a local food columnist and cookbook author, also teaches cooking at the Franklin County Career and Technology Center. He and Michael Mahr, executive chef for Grove Worldwide, have invited eight area chefs to help them put on the barbecue and do cooking demonstrations throughout the day.

"We asked chefs in the region to help us put a culinary twist on the barbecue," Tappen said. "Chefs never get a chance to work together."

Those invited include Frank Ganassa, chef at Whitetail Resort; Michael Tosten and Ronald Berger, teaching chefs at the Franklin County Career and Technology Center; Patrick Burns from the Yellow Brick Bank restaurant in Shepherdstown, W.Va.: Dave Munson, executive chef at JLG Industries Inc. in McConnellsburg, Pa.; Clifford Smith of Mercersburg, Pa.; Neil Thomas, chef at the Holiday Inn in Chambersburg; and Scherrie Kennedy, a Chambersburg baker.

The main menu will include barbecue chicken with an Eastern Shore-style sauce, pork ribs with a tomato-based sauce, baked beans, coleslaw, rolls and cake for dessert. Each chef will demonstrate at least one menu.

Blue Ridge Mountain Cookery Inc. is providing a new $6,500 mobile gas grill for the barbecue.

Patti Tappen said ARC provides baby sitters three times a month so she and her husband can get away for an evening to see a movie or go to dinner. ARC also provides up to 28 overnight baby sitters a year.

"It's wonderful," she said.

Patti Tappen has been a member of the ARC board of directors for 14 years.

Lorrie Barrows, acting director of ARC, said four families with severely retarded children in the two counties use the baby-sitting service.

Altogether ARC provides services to 250 clients functioning at levels of retardation, she said. The agency runs on an annual budget of $131,000. Barrows is the only full-time employee.

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