TULALIP — The 22nd annual “Raising Hands” banquet, honoring the hundreds of area charities who have received funds from the Tulalip Tribes over the past year, turned into a vigil in the Orca Ballroom of the Tulalip Resort Casino Oct. 25.
The Oct. 24 shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School prompted a succession of dignitaries to take to the stage and offer their impromptu thoughts, from Marysville School District Assistant Superintendent Ray Houser and Mayor Jon Nehring, to state Sen. John McCoy and Snohomish County Executive John Lovick.
“What happens to one of us happens to all of us,” Houser said. “And by ‘us,’ I don’t just mean the district, but the families of the district, the city of Marysville and the Tulalip Tribes, because we’re all one family.”
When Houser and superintendent Becky Berg met with Tulalip Tribal Chairman Herman Williams Sr. and Vice Chairman Les Parks, they pledged the district’s support to the Tribes.
“We will stand together, be together and heal together,” Houser said.
Nehring reiterated a point he’d made during the candlelight vigil at The Grove Church Oct. 24, by asserting that the community’s focus should be on those families who have lost loved ones, or who have seen them injured by the shooting.
“I’ve seen the strength in this community, in the way our EMS, police and other first responders handled the situation, and in the way that our community has come out together, to share hugs and cry together over this tragedy,” Nehring said. “The first step is grieving, so we need to give everyone the time and room that they need to recover.”
Like Nehring, McCoy has seen signs of the community coming together, but he believes it’s just as important for its members to work together constructively.
“We need to listen to our kids,” said McCoy, himself a Tulalip Tribal member. “We need to understand how they’re hurting, and work on ways of fixing that hurt.”
Like Nehring, Lovick attended the Oct. 24 candlelight vigil. As such, the county executive credited Nik Baumgart, pastor of The Grove Church, and Tulalip Tribal Treasurer Glen Gobin with inspiring his own off-the-cuff remarks at “Raising Hands.”
“We are one community, and our children are our community,” Lovick said. “I tell our children that, outside of the home, our schools are the safest place in the community, so we will not let fear win the day.”
Lovick thanked the Tribes for the work they do in the community, including the $6.7 million that the Tulalip Charitable Fund has dispensed to more than 312 nonprofits and other community groups over the past year, before he pledged that the county “will be here as long as it takes.”
