On Saturday, June 9th, neighbors gathered at Webster Park for a festive celebration of the park's 15 years of play and Groundswell's 20th year of incorporation.

Webster Park, just west of the Nordic Heritage Museum, holds a special place in the heart of all those advocating for more green space in Ballard as it was the project that started Groundswell NW and in turn led to many more Ballard parks.

Today, Webster Park is the sight of moms pushing strollers, the elderly on their daily strolls, teenagers playing basketball, and kids smiling as they gleefully dig their hands in the sandbox or perform cartwheels in the grass. But 23 years ago, when Lillian Riley first took interest in the parcel of land along NW 68th Street, it was nothing but grey concrete.

It was 1989 and Riley was nearing retirement from forty years of working in a variety of capacities with the Seattle School District. Her four children were grown, and Riley had plenty of achievements to look back upon including successful campaigns to pass school district operations levies, founding the Ballard branch of the League of Women Voters, and raising money for school actives as an active PTSA member. Yet one of her biggest accomplishments had yet to come.

The school district had proposed to sell the former Webster Elementary School and the adjacent playground, and like many other parcels of land it would likely be sold to a developer to turn into housing, said Riley.

The Nordic Heritage Museum moved into the old school and the former playfield became a parking lot.
"The surrounding houses were full of children who had only ever known it to be a playground and who continued play on it," recalled Riley, who lived just two blocks away. "The museum got worried about liability and stopped the children from playing on the parking lot."

With nowhere else to go, kids started playing in the streets and anywhere else to could find space to run around.

"The thing that kicked me into gear was watching kids play on a small construction pit at the end of the block, climbing in containers filled with boards and nails and construction materials. I thought, 'well that's not right. I shouldn't let this go on'," Riley said.

And she didn't.

With a little over a week until a public development meeting was to be held, Riley started doorbelling after work to see if anyone was interested in keeping this property from being sold and keeping public land in public hands.

"We managed to get a darn good crowd," Riley recalled.

Following the development meeting, those interested in saving the property started gathering every Saturday.

"We wrote letters to the School board until one member of the school board asked us to please stop. They had heard our position," Riley said.

That core group of Saturday gatherers formed the nucleus of Groundswell NW, a highly successful non-profit organization dedicated to creating and protecting parks and habitat in Ballard.

Through the efforts of Riley and her neighbors the sale did not go forward, and for the following eight years the group worked tirelessly to gather funding and support to build a neighborhood park.

"You can succeed in project in you just stay with it," Riley said.

But that's easier said than done. Riley was often discouraged during those eight years.

"I felt so alone sometimes and you get tired after a while," she said. "But then neighbors gathered round and it became a collective effort. Still, we didn't know it would actually happen until we got a state grant."

The group held various fundraisers ranging from a T-shirt design contest to book sales, but the big dollar amounts came from a state matching grant which the group received thanks to help and training from the Seattle Parks department. With the funds raised, the design and construction period could start.

This too was a lengthy process but once ground broke it took only a year of labor by the neighbors themselves for the park to open on June 1, 1997.

"Seeing the park done felt pretty good but the thing that feels the best to me is when I walk by and the park is full of kids," said Riley who still visits the park a few times a week and can be found doing some weeding or picking up garbage.

Webster Park has been cited as Seattle’s Best Neighborhood Park and in 2009, Riley was recognized with a Lifetime Achievements Award for outstanding volunteer stewardship from the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department.

"Lillian has been an inspiration and mentor. She's made a lasting mark on Ballard not only through the enduring legacy of public open spaces like Webster Park, but through the ongoing work of the organization she founded and nurtured into a very effective and widely respected force for creating community parks and habitat, Groundswell NW," said Dave Boyd, a long-time Groundswell NW member.

Since its inception, Groundswell NW has been credited for at least 12 Ballard parks, none of which were easy projects.

"One of our main messages is that these projects require a lot of patience and perseverance," said Boyd. "Salmon Bay Natural Area took 12 years from concept to completion, and there's still room to improve. The 14th Ave Park Boulevard project has been going for six years, not counting earlier efforts that identified the opportunity, and it will be many years before the whole thing is done."

Riley is no longer on the Groundswell board, but remains an advocate for more green space in Ballard, which continues to be one of most dense and undeserved neighborhoods in Seattle.

"It seems to me that Ballard needs a lot more parks as so many housing is built without any green space to go with it. It's the kids that suffer in the end," Riley said. "To make Ballard livable there needs to be convenient outdoor space."

Boyd echoed Riley's desire for a greener, more livable Ballard stating, "I'm convinced that we can continue to make Ballard more walkable, bikeable and livable while still retaining and celebrating our maritime industrial roots. I look forward to the day when I'll be able to hop on the Burke Gilman Trail out by Ray's and ride to the new Nordic Heritage Museum, the farmer's market and new shoreline street end parks nestled among thriving boatyards and related waterfront businesses."

For more about Groundswell NW, please visit www.groundswellnw.org.