The vision Andrea Underwood has had for a number of years is finally coming to fruition at a little spot at Johnson's Crossing.

There, Underwood and Lesley Horn are busy pumping gas, baking goodies and greeting their first customers of the season at the campground/gas bar.

The site is planned to be much more than that though.

On Monday, Bill King joined the pair to get started on having the facility live up to its name as the Johnson's Crossing Therapeutic Living Centre.

It's set to offer programs for, currently, up to five people who have mental addictions.

Clients will live at the hotel, with programming offered through Underwood, Horn and King, who have worked in various aspects of the mental health field for years, and learn job skills by working at the site.

"We're chomping at the bit to get the clients involved,” Underwood said in an interview last Thursday afternoon.

The threesome are all partners in the new venture, though Underwood got the ball rolling.

Underwood worked as a support worker first with the territorial Justice department, then with the mental health services branch of the Department of Health and Social Services.

It was there she experienced the frustration of seeing clients with mental health issues benefit from proper medication and services to start getting their lives back on track, only to end up in poor housing situations – if not homeless – and back where they started from.

Underwood worked to have services maintained for clients, "but government works very slow.”

She knew the difference little things can make for people from her days working at the RCMP cells in Teslin.

Whenever things were seeming like they might get a little out of control, Underwood would bake some bread and things would soon calm down, she recalled.

So later, based in Whitehorse and learning that the city rents out its kitchen at Shipyards Park, she started a program that saw clients, under supervision, cook and prepare food for sale out of the kitchen.

It proved a success as Underwood watched the confidence and skills of clients with mental health issues grow.

She wanted to take it one step further. With three others, she worked on plans to begin a full-time therapeutic program to help clients gain necessary life skills.

Plans were underway for the then-four partners to purchase the site of the former Baha'i centre near Lake Laberge, but personal health and family circumstances for other prospective partners meant the project never went through. For Underwood, it was put on the back-burner.

That was until she was driving with Horn one day and the two noticed the Johnson's Crossing campground was for sale. It seemed like the perfect spot to run the therapeutic program she had envisioned years before.

"I think the setting is extraordinary,” she said.

At more than an hour from Whitehorse, the site is far away from the "temptations” the city might offer while still being close enough to access services here if needed.

Underwood bears the title of executive director and brings her past as a support worker as well as time spent running a lodge in Ireland.

Horn's experience for her role as program director comes from her work with clients at Teegatha'Oh Zheh, which provides programs to adults with intellectual disabilities.

Meanwhile, King, who will work on identifying clients for the service, brings with him years of working in group homes in various regions of the country.

An individual plan will be identified for each client. In general, however, a client's program would include skills and cultural components, art therapy, baking, cooking and gardening as well.

All of that will be done with four goals in mind:

• providing clients with the necessary skills to live drug and alcohol free;

• providing clients with the education and skills to manage their mental health;

• providing clients with the tools to become "contributing, respected members of mainstream society”; and

• providing clients with the skills to make better life choices and live crime-free.

The program will work on a referral basis with the trio working with mental health services, drug and

alcohol services, community health centres, physicians, psychiatrists, band offices, probation and the Whitehorse Correctional Centre.

A rate of $200 per day has been established , including accommodations in the motel, food and the programming.

Horn said officials are also willing to work with individual clients who may not be able to afford to come up with an alternative plan.

While doing work at the campground, restaurant or gas bar at the site, clients would be supervised, she stressed.

"It has to match with the campground too,” she said of each client's program needs.

The campground has been operating under Horn's and Underwood's management since May 3 with the gas bar, RV sites and the restaurant opened.

"We want to get the services in place first,” Horn explained.

Those stopping in for gas and food so far have complimented the pair on the work done on the place.

"The campground is booming,” she said.

Travellers from California to Alaska have stopped in to spend the night, many praising the programming plans for the campground.

Campground rates have been set for the season at $30 per night for a 30-amp power hookup with water and sewer services, $28 for 15 amps of power and water, and finally $18 for an unserviced site.

Horn has also been pleased with the response to the restaurant's Sunday service, which offers a full three-course menu for $18.

As things get up and going, she hopes birthday parties, weddings and other events can be hosted through the restaurant as well.

On Monday, work began on getting clients for the therapeutic portion of the operation with King's involvement.