Cal Anderson Park Alliance (CAPA)
Cal Anderson Park Alliance (CAPA) is a community-led stewardship organization that brings together neighbors, property owners, and other community stakeholders to ensure that Cal Anderson Park is vibrant, clean, activated, and welcoming for all.
Our values
As we work to maintain, activate, and improve the park and neighboring amenities, we are guided by shared values:
Access – Cal Anderson Park serves a diverse community and broad range of user groups. Accessibility and inclusivity are essential. Everyone should feel welcomed and valued. Park infrastructure such as paths, play areas, public restrooms, and the community room should be clean, ADA compliant, and well maintained.
Respect – We value respect and empathy. They are the core of a healthy and engaged community.
Safety – Cal Anderson Park should be a multigenerational space where all feel safe and welcome. Our hope is this space can promote wellness while fostering a connection to nature, healing and community.
Sustainability – Sustainability will guarantee our future. Through accountable governance and environmental stewardship we will ensure the long-term health and livelihood of Cal Anderson Park.
Creativity – Cal Anderson Park is located in the Capitol Hill Arts District. We must maintain and build space for arts and culture to thrive, challenge, teach and inspire through art installations, music, and performance.
CAPA Board
The CAPA Board is made up of volunteers who live in the neighborhood and who are very passionate about the park and the community. Contact us if you want to get involved!
The Capitol Hill Garage Sale
Each year the Cal Anderson Park Alliance hosts the annual Capitol Hill Garage Sale, Seattle’s longest running community-wide garage sale and regularly features over 100 people selling their treasures in Cal Anderson Park in addition to many independent garage sales at homes across Capitol Hill. We aim to give our fellow Hill citizens a day to come together, shed some extra belongings, do some recycling and meet neighbors!
Stay in the know!
Follow us on Facebook or sign up for our periodic news blasts at the bottom of this page.
Contact us
Our e-mail is calandersonpark@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you!
CAPA’s history
Kay Rood
Neighbors came together in the 1990s, led by Kay Rood, to envision a new life for the Lincoln Reservoir and Bobby Morris Playfield. Through advocacy, community engagement, and perseverance, they partnered with the City of Seattle to create the park we know today. In 2005, the new park, over the lidded reservoir, was re-opened as Cal Anderson Park.
To ensure that the park lived up to its promise, Kay and other organizers established Cal Anderson Park Alliance in 2007. For years, the organization sponsored and helped to facilitate events and activities such as the annual Independence Day Community Picnic (free hot dogs for all!), the annual Community Garage Sale (no garage? no problem!), Pride events, movie nights, and more. Meanwhile, CAPA also kept an eye on maintenance and coordinated with the Seattle Parks Department to keep the park in good shape and add amenities, including ping pong tables.
Over time, CAPA’s connection with the City frayed, and its resources waned. But in 2019, Capitol Hill community organizers, nearby organizations and neighbors, and the Seattle Parks Foundation regrouped and revitalized the Cal Anderson Park Alliance, with the goal of activating the park and nearby amenities, stewarding the park’s maintenance and growth, and ensuring that the park is safe and welcoming for all.
It’s been an eventful few years since we began to pull CAPA together again. None of us expected a pandemic or the CHOP, but Cal Anderson Park still remains the living room for Capitol Hill and a touchstone for communities across the region. As our City and our neighborhood look forward, CAPA's current Board is committed to not only making the park a green space that provides respite for the local neighborhood, but a vibrant, sustainable gathering place for all.