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Camp Tapawingo building now finished thanks to grant

FALLS CITY -- A long-awaited multipurpose building was just completed at Camp Tapawingo, located west of Falls City, thanks to a sizable grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

October 03, 2012

FALLS CITY -- A long-awaited multipurpose building was just completed at Camp Tapawingo, located west of Falls City, thanks to a sizable grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

Camp Tapawingo was awarded a $150,000 grant to help pay for the majority of a new 1,400-square-foot multipurpose building.

Now complete, the new facility will provide space for basketball and volleyball courts, a meeting room, a game room and office space for camp guests and staff.

The new facility will ease space constraints at the camp -- something that was long needed.

"We were using the chapel before and it wasn't big enough," said Dick Schmitke, the chairman of the camp's board of directors. "This is a building we've been planning for the last eight years. It's been a vision for a long time."

Schmitke said the camp began construction on the multipurpose facility in Sept. 2011 and the building was complete at the end of last month.

About 90 percent of the funding for construction was provided by the grant. Fundraising, donations and camp investments paid for the remainder of the cost.

Schmitke said the camp wanted to raise the funds without seeking loans, so the grant allowed for construction to begin much sooner than expected.

The Murdock Trust was created by Melvin J. Murdock, founder of Beaverton's Tektronix, to provide grants to Pacific Northwest organizations.

A dedication for the new facility is to be held this month.