What do the skateboard park, the Farmer’s Market, the Children’s Center, the Lopez Island Family Resource Center, Fertile Ground and Sally’s Garden have in common? Thanks to generous donations of land by Natalie Roush and Sally Bill, they all reside on property owned by the Lopez Community Center Association (LCCA). Conservation easements with the San Juan Preservation Trust will preserve the current open space and view corridors. As the stewards of this land and of the Lopez Center for Community and the Arts, the Association (note the same LCCA initials) is the enabler and the facilitator, allowing others to use this space for a multitude of purposes.

In that role, the Association is effective because of the quality and quantity of the volunteers who support it, from board members and events planners to groundskeepers and weed diggers. Ten years ago, Lopez Center for Community and the Arts opened its doors to community contra dances, school plays, church potlucks, classical concerts, lectures, art classes, wedding receptions, birthday parties and many more activities—whatever the community wanted. Lopez Center has added a new dimension to the word “multi-purpose.” Most years more than 300 events are held in Lopez Center, sometimes with two or three events happening on a single day. Scores of community members of all ages volunteered to design, construct and now manage and maintain the facility.

If these numbers could talk, they would tell stories of energy, enthusiasm, commitment, and belief in a mission to serve the community. Probably no one has given more volunteer hours over the past twenty-three years or has more stories to tell than Lynn Waller, from Board chair to lawn mower par excellence. Under his leadership, the by-laws and constitution were drafted for LCCA in 1987, the year after Ms. Roush donated five acres for a community center in the village. Then he stepped back and said it was time for other volunteers to take over. However, he was back attending board meetings by 1989 at the encouragement of Hal Gillespie.

His heart has never left the grounds. At age 86, he is still driving the lawn mower across Natalie’s original five acres.

“I think I’ve mowed four times already this year, and I’ll keep doing it through the summer,” Lynn said. He served nine years on the board through those formative and fund raising years when people told him it could never be built.

“What I’ve enjoyed most over the years has been working with all the wonderful people. The people who all pulled together to make it happen,” he said. Now it is time for other people to carry it on, for all those new community members who weren’t here for the fun and hard work in the 1990s when we raised the money and designed the building.”

Lynn and his wife Marlys moved to Lopez in November of 1986 after his retirement from a successful career as a public school administrator in the Seattle area. However, the family started in 1953 to try to acquire property here.

Richard Sorenson, the executive director of LCCA, endorses Lynn’s thoughts on the need for others to step up and assume rewarding volunteer positions with the organization, from pulling weeds to planning events to even letting Lynn retire from his mowing chores.

“It is time for the next group of Lopezians to step up and take this valuable resource to the next level of serving the community,” Sorenson said.

“We owe them (the long-serving volunteers) the understanding that their efforts will be carried forward into the next ten years. Please join us in building on this foundation by volunteering your time and resources to this valuable island resource.”

People wishing to learn more about LCCA and the opportunities to volunteer please go to www.lopezcenter.com or call 360-460-2203.