Donation of laptops timely for LEAP

FARMINGTON – Among the many tragedies associated with the Sept. 16 explosion at LEAP Inc. was the impact on the organization’s ability to to assist its customers. Thanks to a recent donation of laptop computers, the organization is continuing its mission to help meet the needs of adults with developmental, cognitive and intellectual disabilities.

Life Enrichment Advancing People is responsible for assisting roughly 75 adults. Most of their clients lack the ability to function independently and require 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week services. As LEAP Executive Director Darryl Wood said following the Sept. 16 explosion, allowing those services even a momentary interruption wasn’t an option.

Immediately after the blast at LEAP’s newly-expanded administration and training office building, which investigators believe was linked to a propane leak out of a buried line, the organization worked quickly to get back online. They were assisted in this by the organization’s cloud-based payroll and communications infrastructure – those files weren’t lost in the explosion – but hampered by the lack of computers. LEAP had purchased 15 new laptops prior to the explosion and while one impressively continued to function post-blast, much of their equipment was lost.

Also caught up in the explosion was New Sharon resident Bobby Brisard who was near Shiretown Tire, adjacent to the LEAP building, when the blast occurred. In reaching out to different people involved in the Sept. 16 explosion, Wood made contact with Brisard, who has worked for Dell, a computer technology company.

Brisard began working with Dell to arrange for a donation of laptops to LEAP. He also worked with Luke Jamison, also associated with the company, and was able to arrange the donation of 35 laptops valued at more than $25,000 to the nonprofit.

“We couldn’t be more appreciative of Bobby [Brisard], of Luke [Jamison] and of Dell,” Wood said.

LEAP Inc. will continue to operate out of Western Maine Development Group LLC’s business park at 128 Weld Road in Wilton for the foreseeable future. The owners of that facility offered the space at no cost, with LEAP picking up the cost of utilities and some other necessities in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Since then, Wood said, LEAP signed a two-year lease to provide the organization with a home.

The Farmington Falls Road property, which LEAP, Inc. owns, will need to wait for the various insurance-related processes to work themselves out, Wood said. E.L. Vining & Son crews removed debris from the site a couple of weeks ago, leaving behind a parking lot behind a chain-link fence.

The blast remains under investigation by the State Fire Marshal’s Office; the cause of the leak in the buried line and what triggered the blast have not been released as of Monday. The explosion killed Capt. Michael Bell and injured several other firefighters and one LEAP employee: Larry Lord, the maintenance supervisor. All of the injured firefighters have since been released from Maine Medical Center and some have returned to work; Farmington Fire Rescue is once again fully staffing its emergency calls as of Oct. 31. Lord remains in serious condition at Massachusetts General Hospital.