When Patrick Higgins arrives at the Tunison Indoor Park, he knows to head straight for the toys. His mom, Stephanie Higgins, settles in to chat with the other parents. For both the 14-month-old and his mom, the indoor park provides a welcome play option:

“It’s a great opportunity to get out of the house and socialize him with other children,” she said. “It gives him a change of venue.” And it’s not bad for her, either.

“There’s a built-in benefit of getting together with other parents, and bouncing ideas off each other,” she said.

The park is run by a parent cooperative. It is open mornings and afternoons during the week, from September through May. And it’s on those rainy or cold days in autumn, winter and spring that the place often is packed with parents and kids taking advantage of a wide range of toys, from a playhouse to a dragon hobby horse.

Parents take turns running the park, which operates out of the Tunison Fire Station Community Room at 364 S.W. Tunison Ave.

“It’s a well-oiled machine,” Higgins said. “The board members really know what they’re doing.”

But this year, membership is down, and organizers worry that without a boost in numbers, there won’t be enough parents to run the cooperative at Tunison.

Molly Bell originally joined the parents’ cooperative four years ago and has been chairwoman of the board for two years.

In the past few years, between 45 and 60 families have been using the Tunison site, she said. But this year only 25 families have signed up so far. Because members are expected to perform volunteer service — including cleaning, opening and closing the park — membership has to be high enough that the burden of these activities doesn’t fall on the same parents over and over again.

“We’d like to get 20 more members,” as soon as possible, to keep the Tunison park open, Bell said.

Bell thinks the park will stay open through the spring. If more parents don’t join, the board will consider whether the indoor park should re-open at Tunison next fall.

For now, Bell is posting flyers in community locations, putting brochures at the library and encouraging members to spread the word about the park. It’s an effort that she and other members make periodically, and it has worked for decades to get the indoor parks past membership lulls.

Corvallis Indoor Parks were established in 1978, and the Tunison site opened in 1995. Locations of the parks have changed over the years with two parks in operation now; one at Tunison and the other inside the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis. The Tunison site is owned by Corvallis Parks and Recreation Department, which allows the cooperative to use the room free of charge.

In exchange, parents keep the room clean and pay for insurance to cover the kids and parents who participate in the indoor park program for a $45 annual fee. They also can pay $25 for fall or spring term. The fee covers cleaning, maintenance and toy replacement.

“There’s a lot of things for moms with kids to do in Corvallis,” Bell said, “but it’s nice to have unstructured play and time for kids to interact with other kids. It’s building social skills.”

Mike Boucher attests to that. He is a new member who takes his 15-month-old daughter, Dora, to the park on a regular basis. Because Dora is an only child and doesn’t participate in day care, Mike brought her to the indoor park.

“She has more social time with the other kids,” he said, as he watched her moving around the room, checking out the new play area.

To find out more, see www.indoor-parks.org or call 740-1600. Nonmember days are the first Friday of every month, when new parents can check out the play park for free.