Oregon Summer Star

Camp is 5 nights long. Campers arrive Sunday afternoon and leave Friday midday.

OSS 2025 is scheduled for July 13–18, 2025. Campers arrive Sunday afternoon and leave Friday midday. Staff arrives July 11 and counselors July 12.

OSS 2025 will be at Camp Cedar Ridge in Vernonia, OR—about an hour northwest of Portland.

Oregon Summer Star typically hosts from 50–80 kids each year, many of them returners.

Each cabin is assigned 1–2 counselors aged 16–21, depending on the size/age of the squad and the experience of the counselors. Many of our counseling staff are former OSS participants or have similar experience working at Outdoor School or other summer camps. These counselors report to Senior Staff, who must be over 21, and many of whom are educators with current teaching licenses.

We accept registrations from campers ages 7–17. We accept applications from prospective counselors ages 16–21.

We accept applications from prospective counselors (CLAC Staff) ages 16–21. We typically open the application in spring (Mar–May) and aim to complete the interview process by May–June. Once hired, counselors are required to attend a training weekend that typically takes place 2–4 weeks before the dates of camp.
Cabin Leaders and Associate Counselors (CLAC Staff) are the two kinds of counseling staff at Oregon Summer Star. Campers transitioning into counseling roles typically start as an Associate Counselor, being mentored by their Cabin Leader partner.
Counseling is a very different way to experience OSS—more responsibility, less socializing with friends—so we encourage campers to wait a year if they’re on the fence. 🙂

Registration this year is $500/child. If this is not feasible for your family, please continue to the next section to read about the options we offer!

Many Oregon families are experiencing economic hardship. We strive to make camp equitably accessible for military families who need us. We offer the following options:

1. Payment Plan: We break the $500 into monthly installments for you. The sooner you register, the lower your monthly payment will be!

2. Our Military Kids Grant: OMK offers grants up to $300 per child, per grant to pay for extracurricular activities for children ages 1-18. Eligible kids can receive $300 per extracurricular activity, twice per year, for two years (that’s $1200 per child). If you intend to apply for the Our Military Kids grant, select Financial Assistance as your registration option, then send us an email noting that you will be applying or have already applied.

• OMK’s Deployed Program is for children of deployed and stateside activated National Guard and Reserve service members, and
• OMK’s Combat Injured Program is for children of service members and Veterans from any service branch who is receiving treatment for post-9/11, combat-related wounds or illnesses.

A separate application must be submitted for each eligible child for each activity (to be paid to one activity provider/organization). Your child’s grant check, made payable to the activity provider, will also be inside the award packet so that you may hand-deliver it to the activity provider / organization. (We do accept checks by mail, but have no way to recover or replace checks lost in the mail.) Please familiarize yourself with the details and required documents of each program before applying: ourmilitarykids.org/apply.

3. Financial Assistance: All families, regardless of deployment status, are eligible to apply for an Oregon Summer Star scholarship. Our scholarship fund varies depending on what our staff is able to fundraise each year and what grants we receive. You may not receive a decision until early spring. Funds are limited. To apply for an OSS scholarship, you must first register your camper and pay the $25.00 deposit.

4. SOAR4 Scholarship: In 2026, we’ll be piloting a new SOAR4 Scholarship, which offers funding up to a full ride for applicants who demonstrate the OSS character strengths of Integrity, Resilience, or Community-mindedness. We will release more information

Ideally, no! Squad unity and bonding are at the heart of the community-building we do at Oregon Summer Star—we use camper ages and grade levels to make inclusive and developmentally-appropriate cabin placement. We do not take cabin placement requests! We actually find that separating kids who know each other outside of camp creates an environment where everyone can make new friends on a more even playing field, and yields a stronger camp community.

Our staff is experienced at navigating homesickness and helping kids adjust to camp, particularly if they are young or if this is their first time at a sleep-away camp. We find that phone calls can worsen homesickness and actually prevent your child from integrating into their camp experience. If you miss your kiddo, make sure to sign up for our newsletter where our media team is uploading pictures each day and filling parents in on what we are up to. You can also email letters to us at oregonsummerstar@gmail.com and we will print them and slide them into their cabins mailbox.

We’ll send you a packing list before camp!

Safety is our highest priority. We take many precautions to ensure students are comfortable, healthy and safe while they participate in OSS. An on-site nurse manages health concerns, oversees all medications and provides treatment as necessary. Should an emergency arise, campers will either be transported by ambulance to the nearest hospital or a legal guardian will need to transport them off-site. We will use the parent/guardian and emergency contact information collected in the Camper Health and Safety forms to keep family informed.

Additionally, we follow the Oregon Health Authority’s Too Sick for School guidelines. If your student has any symptoms listed, we will contact you to pick them up as soon as possible.