Girl Scout Camp Arrowhead Withdrawn from Auction

Girl Scouts Columbia River Council's board of directors met on Monday, October 29 and voted, by an 11-7 margin, to withdraw Camp Arrowhead, its only summer resident camp, from a November 14 auction.

The board had voted in August to sell the camp, due to extensive repairs needed and the financial drain of owning a camp that was not fully operational. However, a group of volunteers and former camp staff members coordinated an effort to stop the sale, and convinced the board to give them more time to raise funds and get the camp up and running again.

The plan is to set up a task force, made up of board members, volunteers, and council CEO Cynthia Hamilton, which will be charged with meeting certain conditions the board has set for keeping the camp. The main conditions are to raise about $100,000 to cover costs of keeping the camp, and to come up with a business plan for getting the camp up and running again. If these conditions are not met, the board may still opt to sell the property. Volunteers will also need to raise funds for repairs and improvements, and make sure that camp facilities are in safe condition before re-opening.

Camp Arrowhead is located in the Columbia River Gorge near Stevenson, Washington. Girl Scouts Columbia River Council has owned the camp property since 1948. Summer resident camp was held there through 2006, when the water system failed at the end of the summer, forcing the council to cancel the final session of camp. Although they were able to repair the water system and allow troops and groups to camp on-site during the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007, the council felt the water system was not stable enough for resident camp use, and resident camp was canceled for the entire summer of 2007.

Troops and groups have still been able to use the property on weekends, and volunteers recently held a weekend camp reunion event, during which the water system was still operational. The system will need extensive repairs and possibly replacement of the camp's water tank before it can be used for resident camp. The camp's swimming pool is also in need of replacement.

Girl Scouts Columbia River Council owns two other camp properties, the Mountaindale Program Center (also known as Camp Mountaindale) in North Plains, and the Homestead in Rhododendron, but neither has the facilities to support a resident camp at this time.

In October 2008, the council will be merging with other Oregon and SW Washington Girl Scout councils as part of a Girl Scouts of the USA realignment program. These councils also own camp properties, but all are at least 3 hours away from the Portland area and are much smaller properties. The Camp Arrowhead property is only one hour from Portland, and is 266 acres, with nearly exclusive use of a total of 1200 acres which were originally owned by the Girl Scouts (a portion of the land became part of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest when the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area was formed).

An initial meeting to set up the task force is scheduled for Saturday, November 3 at 10:30 a.m. at the Girl Scout Center, 9620 SW Barbur Blvd, Portland, Oregon. CEO Cynthia Hamilton will be chairing the task force, with 3-4 members from the board of directors and 3-4 members who are Girl Scout volunteers. Additional committees will be set up to work on specific tasks, and volunteers are welcome.