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.

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.”

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.

No. 22 Illinois (10-3, 2-1 Big Ten) traveled to Eugene and put an absolute thrashing on No. 9 Oregon (12-2, 1-2 Big Ten), taking down the home team 109-77 – good for the widest margin of victory by a visiting team against a top-10 opponent ever.

Scorching-hot shooting (57.5 percent from the field) led the Illini to their massive triple-digit night as the Ducks’ usually solid defense (68.7 points allowed per game) offered little resistance against an endless rain of threes and layups.

On defense, Illinois held the Ducks to 30-for-69 shooting from the field (43.5 percent), but something less than the usual effort and focus was required (and may have been applied) on an evening when the offense was firing on all cylinders.

Here are a few key digits that offer further insight into how the Illini were able to pull off the historic win:

The Illini needed this. A 15-for-33 showing from three-point range (45.5 percent) against Chicago State was encouraging, but the Cougars are a winless mid-major. Shooting 16-for-29 from three (55.2 percent) on the road against a top-10 team? That’s how a team gets its confidence back. Also worth noting: After a 5-for-25 stretch from beyond the arc, forward Ben Humrichous went 4-for-7 against the Ducks en route to a season-high 18 points. And no, there’s no expectation that either Humrichous or Illinois as a whole can maintain a three-point shooting mark above 50 percent. But if the Illini can hover closer to 40 percent than 30 percent, they will be well-positioned to make a competitive run for the Big Ten title.

Although the shooting has been inconsistent on a game-to-game basis, Illinois has been rock-solid on the boards all year – and that didn’t change Thursday. The Illini outrebounded the Ducks 43-31, now having won the battle of the boards in every game this season but the home loss to No. 1 Tennessee. Against Oregon, Illinois got a big night on the glass from Tre White – who posted the quietest 20 points and 11 rebounds you’ll ever encounter – while Tomislav Ivisic added eight and Kasparas Jakucionis six. The Illini need to continue their rebounding domination against the bigger, more athletic competition of the Big Ten. If the Ducks game was any indication, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Through 12 games, Illini coach Brad Underwood and his staff had been keeping the rotation pretty tight, with only Will Riley, Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn and Morez Johnson Jr. getting regular, significant minutes off the bench. But that changed on Thursday, and after the performance of Jake Davis, the change could become permanent. Davis – uniform No. 15 – is a Mercer transfer who, after entering the game with 14 points on the season, nearly doubled it with 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting from the field against Oregon. None of that was garbage-time production, by the way. All of Davis’ scoring came in the first half, when the margin was still within single digits and the outcome was still anyone’s guess.

3 Big Takeaways From Illinois Basketball’s Win Over Oregon

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A popular campground on Oregon’s south coast was evacuated due to flooding Friday morning while two other popular parks were inaccessible after a landslide undercut a highway near Charleston and Coos Bay.

Sunset Bay State Park’s campground was impacted when Big Creek came over its banks between Thursday and Friday night, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department officials said.

“The campground will likely remain closed through the weekend due to high water and tide conditions,” OPRD spokeswoman Stefanie Knowlton said. She added that the Sunset Bay Day-Use Area remains open at this time “but could close if flooding continues.” The restroom is closed, but there are portable toilets available. 

Shore Acres and Cap Arago also closed by landslide

Just up the road from Sunset Bay, a “significant landslide has occurred” on Cape Arago Highway.

“The slide has caused substantial undermining of the roadway, leading to its closure,” OPRD said. “As a result, both Shore Acres State Park and Cape Arago State Park are currently inaccessible to vehicular traffic.”  

The trio of parks — Sunset Bay, Shore Acres and Cape Arago — are three of the more popular destinations on the south coast. It’s unclear how long the area would be inaccessible.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 16 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors.