DCH Audi Millburn funds LifeTown’s renovated ‘road’ for people with challenges
Addressing the critical need for educating people with autism and other educational challenges, DCH Audi Millburn and its parent company, Lithia, presented LifeTown in Livingston with a generous grant for improvements to its indoor Main Street.
LifeTown is a 53,000-square-foot center with recreational, therapeutic, and educational facilities for children, teens, and adults with special needs. Besides its Main Street — where people can learn street safety practices, follow traffic signals, and obey police officers as they direct pedestrians — LifeTown boasts fully functioning shops, an indoor sensory playground, a therapy pool and art studio, a kitchen, a sound-dampening gym, and sensory rooms. In this simulated city, people with special needs exercise and reinforce curriculums in life-like stores and streetscapes.
Brian Lam, northeast regional vice president of Lithia and DCH Audi Millburn, presented a check to Zalman Grossbaum, CEO of LifeTown and Friendship Circle of MetroWest, and officially opened the renovated road. The grant supported the addition of new traffic lights, flashing signal signs, and clearly marked crosswalks among the LifeTown Shoppes.
The street was generously sponsored by DCH Audi Millburn, powered by Lithia Motors, Inc., one of the nation’s fastest-growing automotive retailers and largest providers of personal transportation solutions in the United States.
According to a study by Rutgers University, as many as 54 percent of adults with autism in New Jersey are unable to cross a street safely. New Jersey flagged the need for street-crossing programs to help with pedestrian-skill acquisitions as a part of its Complete Streets policies.
“We’re very proud to present this grant,” Mr. Lam said. “LifeTown is an incredible organization that is dedicated to making the world a better place. We’re grateful for our partnership and extremely honored to be able to support them in their program expansion.”
“Street safety skills are incredibly important for the 10,000 special education students who visit LifeTown each year, providing them with critical tools for the real world,” Rabbi Grossbaum said. “We are incredibly grateful to DCH Audi for their partnership and generosity.” For information, go to LifeTown.com.
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