The announcement early last month that Camp CaPella would have to close for lack of funding was one of the most difficult that United Cerebral Palsy of Maine has ever had to make.

But it also presented the organization with one of its biggest challenges regarding an institution that for more than 40 years has been a summertime haven for the region’s disabled children.

How do you reinvent such a valuable tradition, the agency was forced to ask itself, to keep it from becoming nothing more than a memory?

“A crisis can make things look awfully bad,” said Bobbi-Jo Yeager, the UCP’s executive director. “But if you allow it to open your eyes you can begin to see new opportunities.”

Encouraged by the tremendous outpouring of support after the news of the camp’s budgetary troubles – not only from parents of children who have attended, but also from former counselors as well as members of the public who recognize its need – UCP recently launched an ambitious fundraising campaign intended to secure some kind of future for the financially strapped program on Phillips Lake in Dedham.

The goal is to raise $200,000 in donations, Yeager said. Some of the money would be used to hire a year-round camp director – a first for the program – who would be responsible for running the camp that serves about 80 children with disabilities each summer as well as devising and overseeing critical fund development and revenue-generating projects.

Yeager said about $100,000 would be needed to reopen the day camp and run it for a summer, while the remaining money would be used for program development, equipment and maintenance of the facility.

“Our hope is to raise enough money to reopen the camp eventually, but the very earliest we can hope for is in 2007,” she said. “I do think the camp can come back, I really do, although it may not look like the Camp CaPella we’ve always known. But there is such a need for it out there, and we will continue to address it in any way we can.”

UCP has begun to explore the possibility of collaborating with other camps in the area to provide children with disabilities – the majority of whom require the one-on-one supervision of counselors – a place to go this summer for the kind of recreation and social opportunities they had always enjoyed at Camp CaPella.

“I’m working with the Y camps to see if maybe we can carve out a couple of weeks for our kids to attend,” Yeager said. “It’s a pilot project for this summer, and I’m very hopeful about it at this point. If it works, it could open up new possibilities and experiences for the kids.”

Yeager has also met with representatives of the Pine Tree Society, which runs an overnight camp in Rome, near Augusta, for children and young adults with physical and developmental disabilities that include cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome and spina bifida.

While Pine Tree has graciously offered its services to children who have attended Camp CaPella in the past, Yeager said the majority of the families would probably not be able to take advantage of the alternative site.

“Part of the problem is that many of our kids are just not ready for the overnight camp that Pine Tree offers,” she said. “The kids with fewer behavioral issues can go to other camps, and we have always encouraged that, but a large portion of them just couldn’t handle it. In the past 10 years or so we’ve seen more and more

kids with severe multiple handicaps – kids with no language, or who might bite or hit. Those are the kids who were coming to Camp CaPella. It’s what makes the camp unique.”

And for many compassionate members of the community, what makes the camp worth saving.

Yeager said several individuals have been gathering items for a possible silent auction to benefit Camp CaPella, and some parents of the campers are arranging a summer fundraising barbecue at the lake. A charitable organization called Artists for Hope, inspired by one of its members who worked as a counselor at the camp years ago, is sponsoring a benefit dance at Jeff’s Catering in Bangor on Feb. 26. A group of Brewer High School students is planning a fundraising dance for the camp, Yeager said, while other people in the area have volunteered to plant flowers and do much-need painting and carpentry work at the lakeside facility.

“The community seems to be rallying for the kids, so I feel very encouraged,” Yeager said. “These kids really do need a safe place where they can make friends and socialize and be accepted. And that’s what Camp CaPella has always been for them.”