NEW FRANKLIN: When Peter Paino and Scott Strayer spent a few hours at the Akron Rotary Camp this summer, met the campers and saw the condition of the cabins, they were hooked.“It was virtually impossible to say no,” said Paino on Saturday. It was the seventh Saturday that he and up to 20 other members from the Homebuilders Association had volunteered their time making major improvements to cabins at Rex Lake, a camp for children with special needs and their families.Paino, 60, founder of Paino Building Corp. of Kent, and Strayer, 28, of Barberton, owner of Helen Scott Builders, are co-chairs of the renovation project. The association is renovating four cabins at the 1924 camp.Two cabins are done — one funded by the Lehner Family Foundation and the other by volunteers from RDA Hotel Management. RDA volunteers are also renovating a second cabin.The work is part of a $3.5 million project that began with a $1 million donation by the Akron Rotary Club, the organization that owns the camp.By next year, all seven cabins at the camp that serves 1,700 children and adults each year will have been improved, said Camp Director Dan Reynolds.Also next year, construction will begin on a new recreation center, expected to be finished in 2012. The old center eventually will be torn down, adding more green space to the camp, Reynolds said.Of the $3.5 million needed for the project, $2.2 million has been raised.The Wayne Homes Chili Open held each February at Hale Farm and Village in Bath Township is the Rotary club’s main fundraiser each year, and an expected $100,000 from the winter golf tournament will subsidize camping fees.“All campers have developmental disabilities,” said Reynolds, 36, who has been director for 12 years and lives on site with his wife and two children. “There are lots of children with autism and Down Syndrome and other cognitive delays including physical disabilities like spina bifida and cerebral palsy.”Camping events are held at the Portage Lakes facility year round. This weekend, nearly 40 children were in two cabins for a “respite weekend” designed to give their caregivers a weekend break.The Akron Rotary Camp has been operated by the Akron Area YMCA since 1995. It was originally built to help children with polio and cerebral palsy.“All these buildings were built in the late 1950s, before the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Reynolds said. Today, “our kids have different needs and our parents have different expectations.”On Saturday, volunteers worked on roofing and siding and other parts of the project.Paino said when Rotary Club officials asked them if they could help out, there really was only one answer.He said he and Strayer heard stories and met some of the campers.“There is no way we could resist,” Paino said.For more on the Akron Rotary Camp visit http://www.akronymca.org/RotaryCamp.aspx.To make a donation, go to http://www.sailingthecourse.org, or call 330-644-4512.Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or at jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.