Vashon has a significant opportunity before it, thanks to the efforts of the Vashon Park District and several engaged parents and sports enthusiasts. If the Island can raise $300,000, it can take advantage of nearly $1 million in state grants, county grants and private foundation funds to build a high-quality complex of recreational fields next to The Harbor School just north of town.

It’s a classic example of the kind of project that communities undertake these days. Tax dollars are often no longer sufficient to take on far-reaching public projects. In this case, as in so many other governmental endeavors anymore, a public-private partnership — a combination of tax dollars and private donations — is needed to bring this effort to fruition.

The sports community — read soccer, baseball, football and lacrosse enthusiasts — has not always worked in concert. When it comes to fields, they’ve often found themselves locked in a tense competition, vying for the same finite patches of grass so that their members can get the practice or playing time they need to be a viable club.

It got particularly tense this spring, when adult soccer entered the picture — just around the time that youth baseball and lacrosse were in full swing.

But to the sports community’s credit, they’ve come together around this ambitious and important project. The clubs and sports programs seem to recognize their shared fate: If they successfully work together to get some improved facilities, all stand to benefit.

Now, as a result, the Vashon Park District has at the ready a corps of talented Islanders willing to raise funds, lend expertise, contribute in-kind services and do what’s needed to complete this community-building project.

It won’t be easy, given the region’s economic climate and the Island’s philanthropic pressures. The fundraising drive comes at the same time that many of the people who might give to a sports fields complex are giving to our public schools — another public-private partnership in an effort to shore up a system that our tax dollars alone used to fully support.

But in philanthropy, a clear vision and a corps of people committed to it can usually carry the day. When it comes to the Vashon Athletic Fields, we have both.

We trust they’ll be successful. And when one considers the results — 4.6 acres of new and improved fields, bleachers, lights and bathrooms right off the highway and just north of town — the entire Island will stand to benefit from their passion and commitment.