ESPERANCE — Esperance Park has provided neighbors with an urban oasis just two blocks west of Highway 99.

Volunteers over the past couple of years have done their part to maintain the former elementary school site, which Snohomish County bought nearly three decades ago.

Twice a year, John Briney has organized cleanup parties. He and four other volunteers toiled there the first Saturday in October, piling rotten logs, holly branches, ivy and trash into a metal dumpster.

“What we’ve been doing here is trying to keep the invasives (plants) down and keep a line of sight,” Briney said, as he broke a sweat. “We want kids to use it, but we don’t want them to misuse it. If we can see in, that’s better.”

Briney, a data manager at the University of Washington, said he was inspired to start organizing the work groups because of his service with the county parks advisory board.

The county parks department depends on volunteers to keep running. In groups big or small, you can find cleanups like the one in Esperance any weekend of the year, parks director Tom Teigen said.

“It’s work that just wouldn’t get done otherwise,” Teigen said. “We’re incredibly thankful that people get off their couch, rain or shine.”

All told, volunteers contribute about 43,000 hours of free labor every year, he said. That figure doesn’t include city parks.

The park is in Esperance, an unincorporated area surrounded by Edmonds.

The county acquired the property from the Edmonds School District in 1986, said Dianne Bailey, the county’s park property administrator. The purchase followed a petition from local activists calling themselves the Action Council for Esperance who wanted to prevent the land from being sold to housing developers. A few years later, the county swapped some of that land with the district for adjacent pieces.

The park now totals six acres, with two practice-size soccer fields, a Little League baseball diamond and a playground. A third of the park is woods.

The county hopes to buy an adjacent three-acre parcel, which is the former site of the elementary school. The parks department has applied for state recreation grants and county Conservation Futures grants to cover the purchase price of more than $1 million.

Future park plans call for a new playground, a walking path around the whole property and a sports court, as well as upgrades to the current ballfields, a central gathering area and possibly a community garden.

Before Esperance Elementary was torn down in 2005, the land had a long history.

The district first purchased property in the area in 1911 and built a school building there soon thereafter, district spokeswoman DJ Jakala said. From 1947 to 1952, the district bought up nearby properties to prepare for a bigger building. The district moved the original one-room schoolhouse across SW 224th Street SW to a spot behind Esperance Baptist Church, where it remains.

The elementary school closed in 1976, then was used for a variety of district programs.

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.

Volunteering

To volunteer through the Friends of Esperance Park group, contact esperance.park@gmail.com.

To learn about volunteer opportunities at other Snohomish County parks, contact Tony Trofimczuk, parks department recreation supervisor, at tony.t@snoco.org or 425-388-6604.