Sellwood Community House Programs and Camps

Sellwood Community House Programs and Camps offers Littles Program classes, programs, and events for infants through age 5 and their grownups, along with preschool classes and playgroups and camps for preschoolers. The program also includes K–5 Gymnastics, K–5 Chess Club, Creative Club, and Counselor-in-Training programs for grades 6–8. Exercise for EveryBody is also part of the program offerings.

• Ages: 0–18 years old
• Schedule: Programs and events are offered Monday–Friday with hours ranging from 9am–9pm, with extended hours as needed, plus scheduled events and rentals on weekends; summer camps for preschoolers and K–5 students run for 10 weeks.

Sellwood Community House Programs and Camps is part of a non-profit community center that provides education, recreation, classes, camps, drop-in activities, rental spaces, and community events. Its mission is to be a welcoming, intergenerational hub for people of all backgrounds to learn, play, build community and foster lasting connections and friendships. The building that houses the community center was constructed in 1910 as the first branch of the YMCA in Portland and later served as a residential hotel for men who worked in the old Sellwood Log Mill. It includes a historic gym and a studio above a small swimming pool that was decommissioned in 1940, and preschool classrooms and offices still bear the original dorm room numbers. The building was placed on the National Historic Register in 2006, is a Portland Historic Landmark, and was one of only three buildings in the neighborhood on the National Historic Register at the time of its designation. By 1918 the City of Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation was teaching classes there, and by 1920 the City had purchased the building as the second City-run community center; in 2019 the Friends of Sellwood Community House leased the building from Portland Parks and Recreation, and Sellwood Community House was established as a nonprofit community center that same year. Sellwood Community House has three main locations for programming: Sellwood Community House, PlayLab, and The Shack at Sellwood Park, and it is described as a neighborhood resource supported by neighborhood volunteers and advocates that continues a century-long tradition of service to its community and serves as a place for people of all ages to learn, play, gather, and connect.

Families describe Sellwood Community House as a place where they find an extended family through the group and a place that children can start to recognize as part of their community. One parent describes the lobby as a cozy living room for the neighborhood and the heart of the community, and another says that when someone is new to Portland and comes to Sellwood Community House, that person will be welcomed. A parent of a participant in the Counselor-in-Training program reports that the diverse experiences their son gained by working with children of different age groups contributed significantly to his personal and interpersonal development and that the program fostered leadership skills, a sense of responsibility, and teamwork. Another family describes a lantern walk event as magical and notes the inspiring and caring messages at each stop, the excitement of each actor, and the thought and care put into the event. A new mother describes the nurturing circle as a nest to which she always returned in the first few months of motherhood and says she felt seen, heard, understood, loved, and safe, and expresses gratitude for Brita’s warm guidance.

Last updated March 30, 2026.