Tom & Marti

- Tom and Marti Hilyard, and we live in the northwest end of Tacoma. We've lived in this neighborhood almost 30 years.

- We've been married for 50 years come July first.

- The secret to the successful marriage is the tenacity of the woman.

- tenacity.

- Well, I was evicted from my mother's womb in 1948 and arrived in Tacoma. That's the place we landed. My mom had 18 children that survived. Three did not survive, and I'm the lower half of the middle.

- I'm one of my dad's four children. I moved to Tacoma when Tom graduated from college in 1972?

- '71.

- 1971. I knew that he was smart. And I knew that he was no idiot athlete because he was so tall and skinny that obviously, he had no leanings in that direction, and so I said, "Yes, a person of substance, "who's intelligent and can keep up with me "in analyzing literature, and that's important."

- You should leave things better than when you arrived, and so I've always been struck by the need to do something to make a difference that is a positive difference, and try to do that with each of the endeavors that I undertake and I think she does the same.

- That's true. We're both very dedicated to community, and that includes my supporting his community, his supporting my community, Native American, African American, we're both first people in our family to graduate from college. Family was extremely important to me and stability was important to me, because I had no stability as a child, and so I was in some foster homes and I moved a lot, lived with different relatives, and all just because of survival purposes. Teaching was my passion. Teaching reading was my passion. Sought to get a job at Oakland Alternative High School. I wrote every three months for two years, why I should be there after I did a one-week long substitute job there. I said, "This is where I belong. "This is where I'm meant to be."

- She's made a difference in education. I've made a difference in healthcare. I've made a difference in policies. She's made a difference in culture. We've made a difference in family. Each of those areas of living, we've brought something to that area of living that made a difference. How do you stay with it, when it doesn't work? The thing you learn about riding a bicycle, is that you fall down a lot. You fall down a lot, but in the end you ride the bike. So if you stopped the first time you fell, you'd never have the joy of riding the bike. Knowing that, I don't count the setbacks as failures. I count the setbacks as part of the learning. I look for what can be done. What can be done now? How much of it can be done? What is the solution for today's problem? What are the building blocks that will make that larger picture? What can I do to help others also help support? So one arm has some strength, but many arms make light work.

- My father was a paddler. That's one thing my mother could share with me about my father, and I knew that a connection to my father would be being on the water as a paddler too. And so that was the first thing as I retired and had the time to really participate with the tribe. I was going to get on the canoe family, and to paddle just as my father had paddled before me. Sing those songs that he had probably sang before me, to have that same experience that not only connects me to him, but to the generations and generations, the family lineage from the beginning of time immemorial. The canoe journey has been going on for 20 years. It started first with the Puyallup Tribe, of which I am a member. After 20 years, the circle is come back and we are going to be the sponsors of this year's canoe journey. Every day we paddle between five and eight hours as we go on our journey. We stop, we pray, we dance, we sing together. It is an empowerment for us and our bodies, but it's also listening to and seeing the birds that are there, the fish, the other people that live along. We see what's happening on the shores. We are taking an assessment as it's also a religious experience. You have to be there to know, and so that is something that we do every year now. We have been here for thousands and thousands of years. We are still gathering those things that our ancestors taught us. We are still providing to our children, as our ancestors provided for us, a way of looking at Mother Earth as a partner and a mother. Not as something that we use and throw away the bad parts of. This is who we are. This is where we live. Those who are around us are our neighbors, and we will try to always take the good path on behalf of all of the people.

- Being a good neighbor is commitment to justice, fairness and community, and it's commitment to sustainability.

- Tacoma is a wonderful mixture of people who have come from all over the world. My people have been here for 30,000 years or more. Some people have arrived here after World War II, some after World War I, some have arrived here by plane, some have arrived by boat and by train, but here we are together neighbors. Good neighbors we can all be. Good neighbors are those who will lend a hand when somebody needs help. A place to feel safe, and space so we can hear our own thinking, and to enjoy this beautiful, beautiful place we have. This sky that today is blue and sometimes is gray, and both are good and have a purpose. And we each have a purpose and we each have space, and so that's how we are good neighbors. We are all part of a bigger plan of things that can fit together well.