Editorials / Opinion

Article missed grass-roots community effort

Tuesday’s front-page story on St. Edward State Park [“History echoes in the decaying halls of St. Edward Seminary,” page one, May 26] portrayed a sad nostalgia too common in American life today. It’s a hopelessness propped up by the empty wish that someone else will bring about change.

The piece utterly missed the people in the community who felt St. Ed’s sadness and have turned it into action.

It missed that the creative playground was the result of a grass-roots community effort. It missed legislators like Ruth Kagi, who fought for the funding to arrest the most serious decay of the seminary. It missed the mountain bikers and hikers who do trail maintenance. It missed the city of Kenmore, which started a great summer concert series. It missed the group dedicated to the use and preservation of the park and the volunteers who have, for two years, run a free environmental-education program on a shoestring budget with the long-term vision of using the park and its historic building as a world-class environmental school focused on sustainability.

America doesn’t have to be a place where we only gawk at decay and past misdemeanors. It’s a place where we are empowered by our liberty to do something about it.

— Bill Pierce, Kenmore