PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Families are out thousands of dollars and scrambling to find childcare after the Beehive NW summer camp and afterschool program abruptly closed. And it’s not the first time people running the program have been involved in this situation.
Parents are angry and disappointed, as are the kids. Christine Pond told KOIN 6 News her daughter was “very, very sad” when she heard the news. So were the neighbor kids, she said. “Lots of tears.”
The website for the Beehive NW summer camp said the program was open from June through August at the Taborspace in Southeast Portland, promising trips to various parks and lakes around Oregon and Washington.
Taborspace in Southeast Portland, July 15, 2025 (KOIN)
But Sunday night, the parents got an email: The camp was closed for good. No refunds. No care for the children.
“We’re not just out childcare, we’re out the money and then have to double down to pay for more childcare,” said Rachel Bolognone, a mother of two children that were signed up for camp.
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The Beehive also offered afterschool care. Parents told KOIN 6 News they pre-paid hundreds for that, as well. That program is also canceled. Both parents said they will likely need to take time off from work, now losing income on top of the lost tuition.
Christine Pond is one of the parents affected by the closure of the Beehive NW summer camps, July 15, 2025 (KOIN)
“My daughter won’t have the opportunity to have childcare next year. She’s going to have to stay with me. So that means I’m also not going to be working as much,” said Pond.
KOIN 6 News asked the owner of The Beehive, Christian Bringelson, if he knew they were running out of money, why keep it going for so long? Why not refund the parents and pay his employees before the money was gone? He first said that he held out hope, but in the end, he said he doesn’t know the answer to that question.
“We didn’t make out like a bandit from this. This is not a situation where, like, I’m rolling in dough because we hustle parents or anything like that. We made a huge financial mistake by taking this on,” Bringelson said. “100%, this is wrong. But I don’t have any other info either when I’m in fight or flight.”
The registered agent to the Beehive is his girlfriend, Lesley Marshall. Three years ago KOIN 6 News reported she did same thing with her company Northwest Adventure Program.
“It should have ended with Lesley’s business,” Bringelson said. “Our empathy and trying to make things right. got too carried away.”
According to the Oregon Secretary of State, the registered agent’s sole responsibility is to “accept physical delivery of legal documents on behalf of the business. They are required to have a physical street address in Oregon where they can be located during normal business hours.”
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In a statement on Tuesday, Marshall told KOIN 6 News: “We have been trying so hard for so long to make this work. We continued the old business and did all the programs ourselves for years for families to make good on our debt. Ask any of our families and our commitment is unquestioned. It has never taken off; it has always struggled. We have given everything to this because it is something we care about. We are at the point though that we cannot even afford to feed ourselves. This business has taken absolutely everything.”
Bringelson said he rebranded the old business and a lot of our parents returned, though he couldn’t say how many.
In 2022, KOIN 6 News spoke with Julie Mallory, a parent of a child in the after-school program Northwest Adventure Program. She said she never heard back from Marshall to return, nor did she get a refund, though she was able to dispute the charge on her credit card.
Parents aren’t the only ones out money. An employee told KOIN 6 News they are owed around $1,400 on their last paycheck that they never received.
The families said they are working with the Portland police to file a report and are looking into taking civil action through the courts as well.
Rachel Bolognone is one of the parents affected by the closure of the Beehive NW summer camps, July 15, 2025 (KOIN)
“So my sentiment now is that I’m pretty, pretty upset. And I really, I just don’t want this to happen to more families in the future,” Bolognone said.
Asked if he intends to refund the families and pay his employees what he owes them, Bringelson claimed he has no money.
“I’m currently losing our indoor space, our van for transport, my personal home. I don’t have anything, so that’s, you know, as soon as I get a job and I can start paying back people,” he said.
He also added, “We tried a Go Fund Me. That didn’t work.”
But that GoFundMe states it’s for a yurt. Parents were not happy when they heard that.
” I am appalled,”Bolognone said. “People were donating as recently as just three weeks ago.”
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