Teddy Roosevelt was President when the Shumway Neighborhood was developed. We didn’t get a park until 2000.

Even then, it was only half an acre. It was named after us: Shumway Park. Small as it is, Shumway Park seems much bigger because the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver School District #37(VSD) agreed that park users would have full access to the athletic field and the 1/4 mile track next door at the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics (VSAA). There are no fences or other barriers between Shumway Park and the VSAA athletic field, just a short walk down a grassy slope. Our half-acre park looks and feels like a 5-acre park. And that’s how people used Shumway Park - like it was a 5-acre park.

Today, 20 years after it made its agreement with the City, VSD wants to destroy our park by building parking lots and a road up to the main VSAA campus that will separate the playground at Shumway Park from the VSAA athletic field. This scheme includes construction of a retaining wall that may be as high as 12 feet between the park and the athletic field. If built, the VSAA parking project will maroon Shumway Park in school-owned asphalt and concrete.

We can stop them ….if we act together as a neighborhood.

My name is Mark Didrickson. I live across the street from VSAA . My family moved into my house when John Kennedy was president. There was no Shumway Park then, so I know what a positive difference it has made to our community. In the next few weeks, I will be posting more information on this website about Shumway Park and the impact of the VSAA project. Until then, I urge you to go to Shumway Park at 31st and F Streets, look around, and then ask yourself: Do I want this to go away? If you answer is “no,” I want to talk to you in the near future about what we can do.

Please join us.