Grandma Thomas: Advocates for youth still needed

Her original dream is gone, outdated.

The town of Chinle has moved on. The multi-building youth center that Marjorie "Grandma" Thomas envisioned 16 years ago is either out of reach or already constructed by others.

Still, Grandma Thomas, 79, continues to raise funds, and is scheduled to make another walk from Chinle to Window Rock in the fall.

The walk is expected to take place during the Navajo Nation Fair, Sept. 6-12. Thomas hopes to arrive in Window Rock during the fair's Kid's Day.

"The kids wanted this," said Thomas, sitting in the air-conditioned living room of her two-story hogan atop a plateau south of Chinle. "They kept asking, 'When are you going to walk again?' If they didn't ask, I probably wouldn't do it."

Originally, Thomas had hoped to raise $25 million, enough to construct a massive youth complex in Chinle, featuring a sports center, swimming pool, skate park and movie theater.

Eventually, the Chinle Unified School District constructed a state-of-the-art sports pavilion, including a swimming pool. Later the district helped construct the Chinle Skateboard Park.

Meanwhile, Thomas kept up her efforts, though managing to raise only a fraction of what she had originally hoped for.

"I was always hoping someone would read about us and donate," Thomas said. "Some money did come in, but it wasn't much."

Still, she has raised about $116,000. Not enough for a building, but enough to benefit young people in some way. Now, Thomas would like to figure out how. She is currently soliciting the community for ideas on how best to use the money.

"I told them, don't let the money just sit there," she said. "Do something with it, something visible."

Jon Colvin, president of Diné Cooperatives Inc., a nonprofit community development corporation in Chinle that oversees the Thomas fund, said the money is currently sitting in a savings account.

"Our next step is to figure out the appropriate use that would benefit the most kids," said Colvin, who is also a member of the Central Navajo Youth Opportunities Coalition, a board created to help Thomas in her efforts. "Hopefully we can find something that would provide a long term benefit."

Ideally, Colvin said the coalition would like to gather input from local youths.

"They would be the ones making use of it," Colvin said. "The kids might even end up having a totally different view (than the coalition)."

For over a decade, Thomas was a fixture of the summertime scene, her four-day, 80-mile walk-a-thons highly visible on the highway between Chinle and Window Rock. She collected donations along the way in plastic containers held out toward vehicles passing on the highway.

Her walk grew into a regional event. Usually held in July, Thomas would be surrounded by dozens of children and parents carrying signs.

However, each year her advancing age made her steps a little heavier, the trip a little harder. In 2005, she was hospitalized overnight for dehydration and exhaustion, and allowed to complete her walk only after she insisted to the doctor that she couldn't stop.

It seemed every year, she would spend more and more time in a vehicle, cruising beside her group of supporters, weary but patient. Every year, she said, would be her last doing the walk.

Then, in 2009, Thomas was nowhere to be seen. The summer passed with nary a word.

"I don't remember why," she said. "There had to be a reason, but I don't remember. I just didn't think about it."

Though she doesn't credit the missed walk to any particular incident, Thomas was missing one major stone in her foundation that year.

In 2008, her husband of over 50 years, Leo Thomas, died. At his request, Grandma Thomas held her walk that summer. But she had lost one of her biggest supporters, who would spend most of the year helping prepare for the event.

"He used to really help me, he would bring out water and food," she said. "Last year, I couldn't do it. I missed that part, he wasn't there with all that support."
Leo Thomas would start buying crates of water around Christmas, she said, and he'd stock up throughout winter and spring.

It turns out, Leo Thomas, an affable man who seemed happy to be quietly supportive of his forceful, high profile wife, did more than provide logistical support. He pushed his wife to achieve her considerable potential throughout their life together, which began, fittingly enough, when he spotting her herding sheep as a girl.

When they started dating, Leo had a college degree while Marjorie was the oldest student at Farmington High. She was thinking about dropping out.

"To me, it wasn't important," she said.

However, Leo was specific and said the woman he would marry was going to be a high school graduate.

"I had to be that high school graduate," Thomas said with a hearty laugh. "If he didn't say that, I probably never would have gone back." 
Then he pushed her through college.

She eventually earned a bachelor's degree at Northern Arizona University. Then came her master's degree from the University of New Mexico. She started work on a doctorate, but didn't finish.

"I got married and had children," she said. "That was more important to me."
Perhaps, Leo Thomas's support, particularly regarding her fundraising efforts, arose after he recognized his wife's lament as she talked about her childhood.

Thomas grew up on the same plot of land she lives on now, the youngest of four children. While Chinle was only five miles away, she spent most of her childhood alone, she said.

"There was nothing to do, there was no communication with other youths," Thomas said. "There was nothing to do but herd sheep."
Her siblings had moved away for work. It was just Thomas and her mother.

"I was always with the elderly," she said. "It's like not having teenage years. I didn't do things other kids were doing, there was no one to do it with."

And so the dream of a youth center where other rural kids could go and explore their potential, make friends, building ties that might strengthen the community in the future, Thomas said.

Much has changed since Leo's passing. Grandma Thomas now lives with her son and daughter. Another son lives across the valley in Chinle. She spends much of her time crocheting and is currently working on a blanket, knitting yarn in various shades of blue and violet into a frilly design about the size of a belt so far.

This year's walk is expected to be a low-key affair. In September, students will be back in school, parents will be working. Thomas doesn't expect to have as many people walking with her.

In fact, she doesn't expect to walk much at all.

To hear her talk, it seems her determination grows from frustration. Thomas had hoped to see the youth complex constructed by now. She had hoped to see someone else from the community step forward to carry on. Instead, she continues.

"It's frustrating that (the walk-a-thon) was not continued by others," she said of her absence last year. "We need this for the kids. Something needs to be done. Even if the youth started meeting on their own, I would join them and help. I can't do much more at my age."

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