The development of an outdoor camp for seriously ill children promises to deepen the Ohio roots of Paul Newman.

A group of Columbus-area philanthropists has established a nonprofit corporation to build one of the actor’s Hole in the Wall Camps near Mount Gilead.

The $25 million complex would be the first such camp in the Midwest.

"If I have a legacy, it will be the camps," Newman, a native of suburban Cleveland and a graduate of Kenyon College in Gambier, recently told the Associated Press. "I had no idea they would sprout like mushrooms."

Newman has nine camps in operation worldwide that have served more than 100,000 children free.

They make up the world’s largest family of camps for youngsters with cancer, sickle-cell anemia, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening conditions, according to the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps site.

They aim to give children consumed by medical care a chance to become kids again with traditional experiences such as hiking, swimming, boating, fishing, archery and horseback riding as well as arts, crafts and sports.

"I learned I could do some things if I pushed myself," said D.J. Miller of Greenville, who recently spent a week at the original Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Connecticut.

Miller, 15, surprised himself when he scaled a 35-foot climbing wall just a few months after a leg was amputated at the knee because of bone cancer.

The central Ohio philanthropists have quietly raised $4 million for the project, called Flying Horse Farms — with donations from the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Ohio Division of the American Cancer Society and the Wasserstrom Co.

They have acquired a site and hired staff members and an architect.

"When we reach a certain level of private pledges and commitments, we will launch a public campaign," said Kevin Hurst, development director of Flying Horse Farms.

"We have a big number to raise that possibly could scare people."

The group is seeking further financial support from Newman’s association.

Its fundraising arm, the Hole in the Wall Foundation, supports the building of camps with grants but has yet to approve a specific amount for the Ohio effort.

"It will depend on where they are in their process and the kind of case they can make for their need," said Cathy Voelker, vice president of development for the Hole in the Wall Foundation.

"But we are very excited to be working with the people in Columbus."

The existing camps will serve as models for Flying Horse Farms.

"They have 20 years of experience with these kinds of programs," said Patrick Smith, camp director for the Flying Horse Farms organization.

"They are on the leading edge of practices and procedures. They give us great branding and a guide through the process."

The year-round operation of a free camp at its own site with its own medical center, Smith said, would differentiate it from other camps that serve Ohio children with special needs.

The state’s eight children’s hospitals have pledged their support for the facility, which they estimate could benefit 16,000 young Ohioans.

To begin meeting the need, the group this year flew 25 patients from children’s hospitals in Ohio to Hole in the Wall Camps in three states.

Erin Puhl, 14, of Perrysburg also spent a week this summer at the Connecticut camp.

"Everybody there had something devastating happen to them," said Puhl, who has bone cancer. "I felt normal, . . . better than normal."

The Ohio camp, to be designed with a farm theme, is scheduled to open in the summer of 2008 on 167 acres of hills, lakes, woods, trails, meadows and wetlands.

The property was donated by David and Jenni Belford of Bexley.

Other founding board members are lawyer Sean Byrne; Rita Wolfe, corporate director of civic affairs for The Dispatch Printing Company; Sarah Ziegler of the Children’s Hospital Foundation board in Columbus; and Dr. Gerard Boyle, acting chairman of pediatric cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital.

The group will sell naming rights and seek construction volunteers to reduce costs.

"We may have to open with the basics in ’08 and phase in some facilities," Hurst said.

Taking its name from the 1969 movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which Newman played a likable outlaw, the original Hole in the Wall Gang Camp opened in 1988 in Ashford, Conn.

The success of a second camp — the Double H Ranch at Lake Luzerne, N.Y., in 1993 — opened the door for others.

"Camp gives kids a chance to laugh and just be kids away from the hospital setting, impacting their emotional wellbeing as well as improving their medical condition and healing process," said Carol Blanchong, a pediatric cardiologist at Children’s Hospital in Columbus who will become medical director of Flying Horse Farms.

The Belfords’ contact with patients at Children’s Hospital inspired them to seek a site for Flying Horse Farms.

A homemaker and mother of four, Mrs. Belford is a member of the Children’s Hospital Foundation board and a former volunteer in the HIV program.

She and her husband, a furniture manufacturer, often hosted Adventure for Wish Kids outings at their Mount Gilead farm.

The property they found for the camp happened to be adjacent to their farm.

"It was sheer coincidence," Mrs. Belford said. "We thought it was a fortuitous sign that this land came up for sale while the idea was brewing in our minds. The site is so beautiful."

dfiely@dispatch.com