In early January, Virginia Highlands Park was the designated park to help celebrate the 2022 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Virginia; this selection was unanimously supported by Amazon, the National Landing BID and the National Cherry Blossom Festival organizers. Now, the role of Virginia Highlands is up in the air.

Unlike last year, when the community had access to the 3 1/2 acres at both softball fields throughout the Festival to provide art, music, kite flying and more the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) did not allocate even one field for the duration of the Festival, even though it was the designated park early on and organizers began to work with local businesses, an artist, and putting forth a plan to make the celebration a joy for so many. Without dedicated space, any attempts to provide Festival placemaking would be limited part way through the Festival and would have to be ripped away before the Festival ends. After the festival, volunteers would see community assets thrown to the sides of the fields, necessitating volunteers to repair, replace and reset everything over and over again, day after day, week after week and for years ahead.  

Over the past two years, our community park volunteers have been stepping up in the absence of leadership from the County, taking responsibility for placemaking, providing passive and active recreational opportunities, collaborating with businesses, promoting local artists and musicians and instructors and included the 2021 celebration of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the 2020 4th of July and Halloween events, easter egg and scavenger hunts in addition to the numerous music, exercise programs, art, placemaking, etc. This devotion to serving the community comes at the expense of thousands of volunteer unpaid hours and even sometimes out of the volunteers own pockets, trying to create temporary community space while little to no open space exists at one of the largest parks in our zipcode. This tremendous effort should be recognized as going above and beyond for the community and we should have more support from the County to make that easier, not harder.

At this time, the County appears to be both unwilling to prioritize community needs for open space and will not even prioritize the basic needs for open space for the duration of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Without that support for space during the festival and afterwards, park volunteers and organizers have expressed insufficient will to put forth the effort. Furthermore, callouts in the January AHCA newsletter and meeting were made for new volunteers to help lead the Festival event however no new volunteers came forward. Civic association officers were also asked if they would like to take the organizational lead on the effort, however the Officers didn’t have the resources to do so.

We will try to remain optimistic that we will still celebrate the National Cherry Blossom Festival in the community this year but stand in solidarity with park volunteers and activists that are unwilling to shoulder the burden without much greater support from our County.  

Write to the County Board at countyboard@arlingtonva.us asking that they do more to support the park and open space needs in the community and for the celebration of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.