Oregon
Oregon summer camp for children of military families seeks state funding help
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 26 in Vernonia.
Campers pay $350 to attend, 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 St
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.
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (Summer EBT) will be issued to families who are automatically eligible beginning today, June 5, 2026.
Summer EBT is a food benefits program that helps address hunger in Oregon when children are on summer break and don’t have easy access to healthy meals at school.
Families should check their EBT card balance at www.ebtedge.com to confirm receipt. Summer EBT provides $120 for each eligible child to buy food.
This is the third year of Oregon’s Summer EBT program, which is administered by the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) and Oregon Department of Education (ODE). The program expects to serve about 360,000 children this year.
Families who didn’t automatically get Summer EBT on June 5, 2026, should check program requirements before applying. Families can check requirements at sebt.oregon.gov or by contacting the Summer EBT Call Center at 833-673-7328. The Call Center is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., PDT. Apply online in English and Spanish or with a paper application in multiple languages at sebt.oregon.gov.
“Access to nutritious food is essential to children’s health, well-being, and learning,” Oregon Department of Education Director Dr. Charlene Williams said. “Summer EBT provides important support to families during the summer months, and we encourage eligible families to take advantage of this resource.”
Summer EBT is an evidence-based program proven to reduce child hunger and support healthier diets. With this help, families will be able to spend more than $43 million in their local grocery stores, farmers markets and other places.
“We know summer can be especially hard for families who are already struggling to keep food on the table,” said ODHS Director Liesl Wendt. “When school is out, many children lose access to regular school meals, and no child should have to worry about being hungry. Summer EBT helps families buy healthy food and gives kids the nutrition they need to grow, learn, and enjoy their summer. Our goal is to make sure every eligible child in Oregon can access this support.”
Who is eligible for Summer EBT food benefits?
Families can find details about Summer EBT at sebt.oregon.gov.
Families will get benefits automatically on their Oregon EBT card if they have children between the ages of 6-18 and have received one of the following at any time during the 2025-26 school year:
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance
- Medicaid, if household income is below 185 percent of the federal poverty level
- Foster care services
Families also may automatically receive benefits if they have children who:
- Were determined by their school to have a status as migrant, houseless or runaway.
- Took part in the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations.
- Attended a Head Start program that was part of the National School Lunch Program or School Breakfast Program.
Families may need to apply if:
- Their household meets income requirements for free or reduced-price school meals.
- Their child attends a school that was part of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) or School Breakfast Program (SBP).
Important Summer EBT dates:
- June 5, 2026 – The online application opens and applications begin processing.
- Sept. 1, 2026 – Application deadline.
- Sept. 25, 2026 – The Summer EBT call center closes.
Children cannot receive 2026 Summer EBT benefits in multiple states. The program invites families to apply if they have children living in Oregon during the 2025-26 school year. Summer EBT benefits are not considered in a public charge test and are available to children regardless of immigration status.
Additional resources:
PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – Portland General Electric (PGE) has filed for regulatory approval of new electricity rates that would increase costs for large data centers while lowering rates for residential and small business customers, the utility announced Wednesday.
The proposed changes, filed under Oregon’s POWER Act regulatory framework, are scheduled to take effect June 10 pending review and approval by the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC).
Under the proposal, rates for large-load data center customers would increase 29%. Residential customers would see a 1.3% decrease in rates, while small business customers would get a 3.7% reduction. Commercial customers would see a 2.2% decline and industrial customers would get a 1.5% decrease.
The filing follows a May 7 decision by OPUC approving PGE’s implementation of the POWER Act. making it the first utility in Oregon to establish a desperate customer class for data centers and adopt a framework designed to allocate infrastructure costs based on growth-related demand.
PGE said the new structure is intended to ensure customers driving increased electricity costs bear the costs associated with new infrastructure investments.
“Oregon is building a modern regulatory framework that supports responsible growth while keeping customer affordability front and center,” said John McFarland, Chief Customer Officer at PGE. “As energy demand from large-energy users grows, this approach helps ensure the costs of new infrastructure are paid by the customers driving that growth.”
The commission also authorized more measures aimed at managing data center growth, including exit fees, minimum charges and special contracts intended to support clean energy development.
The proposed rate changes remain subject to regulatory review and approval by OPUC.
Copyright 2026 KPTV-KPDX. All rights reserved.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Thousands of Oregonians have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits over the past year, and advocates say more people could be affected as the state resumes a pandemic-paused eligibility requirement.
Since July 2025, the Oregon Food Bank says 40,000 Oregonians have lost SNAP benefits. The spokesperson for the organization tells KATU they expect that number to increase following the return of mandatory renewal interviews, which resumed on June 1.
“All SNAP households will be required to complete an interview when they apply for or renew benefits,” said Nate Singer, director of the Oregon Eligibility Partnership with the Oregon Department of Human Services.
READ ALSO | ODHS urges Oregonians who lost SNAP to contact agency as some can regain benefits
Singer said the interviews are not new but were temporarily suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. “During the pandemic, some households were allowed temporarily to renew benefits without an interview,” Singer explained.
A spokesperson for the Oregon Food Bank said an estimated 187,000 Oregon residents could be affected by the renewal interview requirement. The organization did not clarify whether that figure reflects people who may lose benefits entirely or experience reduced assistance.
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The Oregon Department of Human Services said some households no longer meet the income requirements to qualify for SNAP benefits. Others have failed to provide the documentation needed to complete the renewal process.
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