MEET ROBERT TOPOREK
Advanced certified Rolf
Practitioner endorsed by Mark & Gordie Howe,
Hall of fame Hockey players
Robert studied directly with Dr. Ida P. Rolf for the last four years of her life and apprenticed with her son Richard Demmerle for over three years. Robert also hosted and managed Dr. Rolf's final advanced class in his house in Philadelphia.
In 1978, Dr. Rolf chose Robert to implement and manage a project to demonstrate, document, and promote the benefits of Rolfing Babies and Children. With the support of his housemates and friends, the project was amazingly successful. Since then, Robert has continued to expand his work with babies, children, and entire families. He has documented over 300 families as early as day one and as deep as four generations. Robert began Rolfing his son, Bryan, from the first day of his life.
Robert is now committed to raising $250,000 to teach other Rolfers and body workers what he has learned and expand this valuable program worldwide. The goal is to offer Rolfing sessions to people who have received computers from his digital inclusion program and have babies or children with developmental challenges. These families could barely afford $100 for a computer.
Robert has also worked with children with a variety of developmental challenges, including autism, seizures, cerebral palsy, scoliosis, Down syndrome, spina bifida, and ADHD. Robert aims to bring Rolfing to these children as early as possible.
Robert has also Rolfed adults like Ed Bacon, the former city planner for the city of Philadelphia, Professor Raymond Dart, the anthropologist who discovered the link between apes and humans, and Peter Malkin, one of the men responsible for capturing Adolph Eichman.
Robert's work has touched the lives of over 5,000 men, women, and children, helping them improve their posture, relieve chronic pain, and transform their lives. He has also worked with leading Philadelphia athletes, including Flyers Hall of Fame hockey players Mark and Gordie Howe, Eagles Jon Runyan, Irving Fryer, Chris Go Cong, and many more. His dedication and the positive changes he has brought to these lives are genuinely moving and call for your support.
Robert is leading a worldwide effort to promote the power and importance of touch and technology to advance early childhood growth and development. He worked for three years with the ASPIRA of PA network of Charter schools and the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential to demonstrate the validity of using the Institute's program in public schools. He created a model 21st-century early learning program.
In the late '90s, Robert brought the power and importance of touch and technology to one of Philadelphia's most impoverished, drug and crime-ridden neighborhoods, formerly The Badlands of North Philadelphia. The project lasted for three years. Other massage therapists and volunteers joined him; they set their tables up on the sidewalk and offered free sessions to anyone who would get on the table. They cleaned up the neighborhood, distributed books, art supplies, musical and athletic equipment, and cleaned up a block-long and vast graveyard that had been so overgrown that drug dealers and drug addicts were camping out. They also built a playground that; ultimately, the city tore down to build low-income housing.
Robert aims to raise another $250,000 to expand and deepen this project.
Robert is also a decorated Vietnam Veteran, having served two tours of duty with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. In his first tour of duty, he was awarded the Bronze Star with V for Valor, Purple Heart, and Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with a Palm Leaf. The 173rd Airborne Brigade was the first Army ground combat troops deployed to Vietnam. In the first year, over half of his squad were either killed or wounded, most notably Milton Olive, the first African American awarded the Medal al of Honor in the Vietnam War. He published an eBook on Milton Olive; the First African American awarded the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War.
Robert volunteered for a second tour and was the 2nd Battalion Non-Commissioned officer in charge of the Battalion Civil Affairs program.
His team consisted of soldiers too wounded to go to the field but not wounded enough to be sent home. They built a couple of schools, a Boy Scout Center, a playground, and a health center manned once a week by two volunteer Army doctors and a volunteer nurse. They also took a truckload of families to the dentist once a week and contributed cases of food to an orphanage.
Robert is now working on two books on Vietnam Letters to my parents from the Vietnam War Beyond Survivor's Guilt, Enormous Gratitude a great Vietnam War Story.
Robert was awarded a one-year Leadership Development Fellowship from the Ford Foundation to study personal growth methods and techniques and their relationship to public education. He studied extensively at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and led three twoweek open resident programs before returning to South Carolina.
Robert has participated in many personal growth programs, including EST, Landmark Education, Arica, Silver Mind Control, massage, Acupuncture, and many more.
Robert worked in Poverty programs in South Carolina for two years, teaching reading and math skills to illiterate adults and coaching them on how to apply for jobs.
Robert ran for public office in South Carolina twice for the SC House of Representatives, once for the City Council, and once for the state Senate.
Over his early life, Robert worked as a security guard in a coal mine, a short-order cook in a Perkins pancake restaurant, and a furniture warehouse manager. He also ran a jackhammer on a construction crew.
All of this prepares him for the life he is leading, which involves making a worldwide difference in the evolution of humanity.
