Ron Hosek, Meadowood Springs Speech & Hearing Camp board member, introduces benefactors Sherry Davis, Johnna Clark of AmeriTitle and Jim and Donna Casper at a groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday for the camp's new bathhouse. Staff photo by Nicole Barker

WESTON – Look close at Jim and Donna Casper and Johnna Clark and you may see evidence of halos and wings. The Vancouver couple and local title company manager proved themselves guardian angels for hearing and speech-impaired kids recently by financing a building project at their camp.

All three attended a groundbreaking for a new bathhouse at the Meadowood Springs Speech & Hearing Camp, nestled in the woods on Weston Mountain, along with a small crowd of Meadowood backers.

The Caspers, who donated $300,000, grasped golden shovels during the short groundbreaking ceremony. Johnna Clark, manager of AmeriTitle’s offices in Hermiston, Pendleton and Milton-Freewater, stood alongside the Caspers clutching her shovel and wearing a bright smile. Completing the quartet of benefactors was Sherry Davis, daughter of Dale Chapman, a longtime Meadowood supporter. The Oregon State Elks club created the Chapman fund to finance Meadowood projects.

Clark appealed to Jeld-Wen, AmeriTitle’s parent company, to donate $60,000. Her office had supported Meadowood’s fund-raising golf tournament for years, but this time around she decided to apply for one of Jeld-Wen’s community grants.

As she filled out the application form, she realized she might have a flesh-and-blood link to the camp. The form asked if she had any personal connections to Meadowood.

“It dawned on me that I might,” Clark said, thinking of her aunt who is deaf and grew up in Milton-Freewater.

She e-mailed her aunt, Debbie Eggebrecht, who now lives in Corvallis, and got back a quick and enthusiastic remembrance of camp life in her inbox.

“She was 10 years old,” Clark said. “She remembered her camp counselors and she remembered all her activities.”

Eggebrecht was one of about 100 campers who visit the forest camp each summer for traditional camp fare mixed with concentrated hearing and speech therapy. The camp, on 143 acres in the Blue Mountains, offers two 10-day sessions each July for kids aged six to 16.

The rest of the year, the camp rents cabins and lodge to groups ranging from families to church groups to outdoor schools.

The new 1,200-square-foot bath house means that campers, counselors, medical personnel and clinicians won’t have to continue to use tiny bathrooms and laundry facilities. Construction won’t finish before the snow falls, but Hermiston contractor John Larkin will finish the bathhouse before camp starts in July.

Jim Casper, who grew up in Hermiston and later owned several apartment complexes there, said the camp has been on his radar for quite a while.

“I started playing in the Meadowood Golf Tournament about 25 years ago,” he said.

When he and his wife decided to step up their charitable giving, the camp was a natural choice.

“It was in our hometown area,” he said. “We know where the funds are going and how they will be spent.”

Another reason, he said, is the pure enjoyment he sees on the campers’ faces.

Ron Hosek, Meadowood board member, said the camp is funded entirely with donations. Donors like the Caspers and Jeld-Wen have created an atmosphere that changes lives for kids from all over the United States.

First-timers sometimes arrive with their heads hanging down, refusing to make eye contact.

“These are the kids, if you go to any playground, you’ll see them off to the side,” Hosek said.

It’s different for campers at Meadowood, said Executive Director Robert Hutchins.

“By the time the 10 days are up, they don’t want to leave,” Hutchins said.

Jim Casper said part of the $300,000 is earmarked to repair the camp’s swimming pool that wasn’t used last summer for lack of funds to repair it. The pool will be finished by early spring.

“He’ll be watching kids splash around in it on his next visit,” Hosek said.