In this undated photo provided by Oregon Summer Star, campers fold a flag in honor of those who serve in the military. A new bill would support the camp, which supports children from military families. The camp has recently faced financial struggles.
Courtesy of Oregon Summer Star
Active duty federal military installments are for more than just national defense. Forts, bases and outposts offer grocery stores, bowling alleys, churches and other centers of civic life that provide community for families and support children whose parents serve.
Oregon is one of a handful of states that doesn’t have any active duty bases. Since 2006, Oregon Summer Star, the state’s only overnight summer camp for children of military families, has sought to fill that gap by bringing these kids together and helping them through the challenges of being apart from an enlisted parent. But recently, funding the camp has gotten harder.
“The last five years, we have been retreating to a place where we can barely pull it off,” said Ethan Erickson, the founder of Tsuga Community Commission, a nonprofit that sponsors and administers the camp. “And we’re at a point now where if we don’t have $50,000 by a certain date, we’re not going to be able to do it.”
Sen. Suzanne Weber, R-Tillamook, is proposing a bill during this upcoming legislative session that would allocate more than $100,000 for the camp, which supports families of veterans, the Oregon Army National Guard, and children with other military connections.
The camp has “been operating purely on donations for many years now and it has come to our attention that this much needed service for military affected youth could come to an end very soon without help,” Katy Cvitanovich, Weber’s chief of staff, said in an email. “With assistance they could continue providing the vital support and sense of community Oregon’s military impacted youth deserve.”
Lawmakers review hundreds of spending requests like this during any legislative session. It will be months before they have a firm sense for the state’s financial picture and the costs of the largest issues they plan to address during the upcoming session, including housing and transportation.
Ultimately, this will determine how much is left to spend on other projects, so it’s unclear whether the bill stands a chance of passing. Cvitanovich said in a text message that lawmakers have yet to determine how they would fund it.
In this undated photo provided by Oregon Summer Star, campers paddle canoes on a summer day. The camp used to host about 200 children from military families each year, but now hosts about 50. The camp's goal is to provide community to children with military ties.
Courtesy of Oregon Summer Star
Oregon Summer Star used to serve nearly 200 kids annually, at locations that included Central Oregon, Southern Oregon, the Willamette Valley, and most recently Camp Cedar Ridge in northern Willamette Valley off Highway 47 in Vernonia.
Attending the camp will cost $500 this year, but the new bill would cover the cost for military families to participate, Erickson said. Other camp costs, including staffing and extracurriculars, would still be funded by donations. There are more than 2,000 children in Oregon with active-duty parents, and more than 7,200 with parents in the National Guard or military reserve, according to Dec. 31, 2023, data from the Department of Defense.
In recent summers, the camp hosted about 50 children annually. It costs about $50,000 to run the camp annually, and food costs, property taxes and associated costs of facilities have increased, making it harder to fund the maintenance staff, cooks, nurses and others who keep it running.
“We literally can’t afford the cost of feeding and giving somebody a bed for the night at the camp itself,” said Erickson, who served as a lieutenant with the Oregon Army National Guard.
The week-long camp offers children the chance to play games such as capture the flag and recreational activities like swimming, volleyball and basketball. Throughout the week, campers take part in activities designed to teach them about plants and stream biology and more. Like any summer camp, attendees sing songs and perform cabin skits.
But the camp also includes activities aimed at relating to experiences of families in the military, including raising and lowering the flag and singing a version of “Taps” at the day’s end. By Thursday of camp weeks, when the campers are comfortable and opening up, the kids get an up close look at their parents’ lives in the military: The Oregon Army National Guard brings out vehicles like Humvees and, once, a Black Hawk helicopter. Kids try on camouflage uniforms and helmets and use a radio.
“It’s a way to close that gap a little bit,” Erickson said.
The camp is an important way to help kids in an emotionally turbulent moment in their lives, Erickson said. There’s mental health help and sharing circles with social workers where kids get to talk about experiences that only other campers understand, everything from missed birthdays to picking up an absent parent’s chores to the challenges of growing up without a supportive adult nearby.
“Kids serve, too,” Erickson said. “They didn’t make the choice to get in uniform, but they have to serve, too. They have to do their part within the family.”
In this undated photo provided by Oregon Summer Star, campers gather around a campfire. During the annual week-long camp, attendees sing songs, perform skits, play volleyball and learn more about their family's lives in the military. Supporters of the camp say it helps children feel less alone during the isolating experience of being apart from an enlisted parent.
Courtesy of Oregon Summer Star
Annette Caroline, a 15-year-old student, moved to Portland from Washington D.C. in 2019. She said the camp was one of the first ways she made friends after leaving an area with a significantly higher population of families with armed services members. Her father was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. At camp, she said she’s made friends who can relate to her experience, prompting her to return every year since. Now she’s planning to be a counselor.
“Sometimes I’ll mention something to my friends who don’t have any military affiliation, and they’ll just kind of look at me sideways and be like, what?” she said. “But when I get to talk to these people from camp we all get to have this good sense of connection, and we get to relate to each other in a way that’s really difficult to find in other places in Oregon.
If the camp were canceled, she said, the loss would be a big deal to people like her.
“I think it would break a lot of hearts of the campers there and the counselors themselves who are always looking forward to the next week of camp to not be able to have that anymore,” she said.
Should the bill pass, Erickson said it would be enough to buoy the camp for at least two years, giving them time to figure out a long-term funding plan.
Update: Organizers said attending the Oregon Summer Star camp will cost $500 this year.