North Star Camp

North Star Camp has been transforming lives of its campers for over 80 years. Andy Shlensky grew up as a camper and staff member at North Star and from his childhood dreamt of becoming the owner and director of camp. After realizing his dream, he quickly realized that the challenges of running a business were distracting from the core business of youth development itself. These experiences shaped the creation of Polaris Solutions, which has been North Star Camp’s operational backbone ever since.

Polaris took over day-to-day financial management, introducing automated bookkeeping, monthly reconciliations, and clear financial reporting. This allowed North Star to confidently plan for expenses tied to their seasonal income. We also developed a streamlined hiring and onboarding system tailored to their 100+ seasonal staff, ensuring every counselor, kitchen staff member, and support team was fully prepared before campers arrived. And once they were there, Polaris initiated the adoption of a payment solution to monitor and control employee spending and expense tracking. Polaris also made payday a breeze with individualized paycards.

On the operations side, Polaris implemented tools to manage camper registrations, health forms, and parent communication, simplifying the most time-intensive tasks of running a camp. Vendor management, including supply procurement and maintenance services, was also taken off their plate.

By handling these critical areas, Polaris has allowed the leadership at North Star Camp to focus on creating exceptional programs for campers while leaving the behind-the-scenes work in expert hands.