Oak Grove Park has historically been held together by the determination of its community — most recently by a group of residents who raised more than $4,000 to keep the park open after it was cut from the county’s budget.
“I’ve participated in a lot of fundraising, but I’d never kind of headed one up,” said Cathi Lannon, a member of Friends of Oak Grove Park: A nonprofit dedicated to maintaining and improving the park.
Lannon, the group’s secretary, and other group members wrote up a poster explaining the park’s needs and asking for donations; and they came pouring in.
“There’s a lot of people that are really behind what we’re trying to do and wanting to help,” Lannon said.
In all, Friends raised $4,255 to donate to the county’s General Fund for maintenance of the park through June 30, 2019. A few weeks ago, they were able to present an official check to the Hood River County Board of Commissioners.
“This is a big thing for us, to give this to the county,” said Friends chair Patricia Huff, because it means “It (the park) is not closed and it won’t be closed,” at least until the end of June.
“The county is hoping that they’ll find a solution between now and then to address the deficit in the budget,” Lannon said; and if they do, then “we’re hoping that they’ll just continue to maintain the park.”
If not, the park will continue to rely on grassroots funding until the county can come up with a long-term solution.
The park itself began as a community effort, Lannon said, as it was the Oak Grove residents who asked Hood River County to acquire the former Oak Grove School grounds when the school closed in the late ‘60s.
“The neighborhood really pushed, like it was already their neighborhood playground from the school time, and they really, really wanted to have it maintained as a park for the area,” she said.
Hood River County acquired the land in 1969 for $1; and within the next few years, approximately 60 Oak Grove residents had “pungled up enough money” to buy a 200-foot strip of land bordering the park, said a News article from May 1973.
Friends of Oak Grove Park is just the most recent iteration of a group of Oak Grove residents who have worked to ensure that those in the outlying district had a community gathering space to call their own.
“The original group started out as a group of women called the ‘Lunch Bunch,’ they just got together at the park and had lunch … and they were the ones who did all the fundraising …” Lannon said.
This group of women eventually became the county park committee and worked with fellow Oak Grove residents to come up with an official development plan for the park: Including construction of tennis courts on the recently acquired land, handball courts, bike and bridle paths, playground equipment and a horse shoe pitching area — in addition to the baseball field, picnic tables and barbecue that were already in use on the 2.77 acre property. The park committee put together a development plan and applied for a zone change request, “a formality to bring the park into compliance with county zoning regulations, based on present use,” said a 1974 News article.
The development proposal was met with some controversy, as the Hood River County Board of Commissioners at the time criticized the park committee’s “wild plans” for development and their “erosion of authority” in independently applying for the zone change request.
“We are not asking something for nothing. There are a lot of people who use the park since we have no school or anything else to serve as a social center for the area,” Illa Fenwick, a park committee member, is quoted in a News article dated Aug. 15, 1974, about a county commission meeting where the park committee presented the development plan to the commissioners. “We are self-sufficient people and we seldom ask for any help,” Fenwick is quoted in the article, “we would like to try putting up our own facilities, but we can’t raise the total sum.”
Despite their initial concerns, the commissioners “issued speedy passage to the Oak Grove master plan” at their next meeting, said a News article dated Aug. 22, 1974.
Since those first improvements, restrooms and a picnic structure were built, and a bell tower was added — though the park didn’t get the old Oak Grove School bell that they had wanted: After some controversy in the ‘80s, that bell went to the museum, where it lives today; and the park got its own bell in the late ‘90s.
The tennis courts were last refurbished in the late ‘90s after a local family — later revealed to be the family of Taro Asai — anonymously donated over $20,000 for the project, which included the installation of a new surface and new nets. The courts have since been renamed in his honor.
The park committee became less and less active after Oak Grove Store — which Huff described as “the epicenter of the community” — closed in the early ‘90s. The committee was revitalized after Huff bought the store and reopened it in 2016.
“A couple of years (ago), we just revitalized it because the amenities all need improving, it’s getting crowded out there,” Lannon said, “It was immediate neighbors who were being impacted by the crowds and the overparking, so that kind of revitalized the group; and we heard rumors that it possibly might get closed, so we thought it was important that we get organized…”
The park committee gained official nonprofit status about a year ago, Lannon said, at which point the group formally changed its name and donned an updated mission statement: “Friends of the Oak Grove Park is a dedicated community group working towards the common goal of the beauty and peace of the Oak Grove Park. We support and encourage the founding members’ original intention that the park remain ‘a neighborhood park where families can enjoy a peaceful picnic’ for generations to come.”
Currently, Friends of Oak Grove Park consists of approximately 12 members, including Nancy Moller who, with her 98th birthday coming up in March, is the only founding park committee member who is still involved with the group.
She has stayed deeply involved with the park since Oak Grove School closed in 1969.
“My four children went to school there, so I was aware of the needs of the school and the park,” she said.
As one of their upcoming projects, Friends intends to build Moller’s vision of a toddler’s playground and dedicate it to her once its finished.
“It’s a kids’ park, so little kids should use it,” Moller said.
Moller envisions a series of toddler-appropriate play stations going down the hill between the existing children’s play structure and the picnic shelter, so parents can keep watch, leading to a slide for “a quick ending,” she said.
With maintenance taken care of for the immediate future, Friends is continuing to fundraise for improvements to the park, including the addition of the toddler’s playground and resurfacing the Taro Asai tennis courts. Going forward, the group intends to rejuvenate some of the fundraisers that the original park committee began when the park first opened in the ‘70s, including pancake breakfasts with the Westside Fire Department. Updates will be posted o n the group’s Facebook page.
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