Wilbert “Will” Hill · 2001 Honoree

One of Will Hill’s favorite sayings is “let’s get together.” While his job as a riding page with the U.S. Senate sends him all over town delivering important mail and packages and doing other Senate business, his volunteer life keeps him in meetings night after night discussing ways to make the neighborhood safer, cleaner, and more pleasant for everyone who lives here. Will has been a commissioner for ANC 6 B for twelve years and is now the vice chairman of it, acting as liaison between the community and the District government, ensuring that citizen complaints get a hearing. He is also chair of the First District Citizens Advisory Council and started thePSA-112 East, which has a similar function with the police department. Will is a past president of the Capitol Hill Garden Club, an organizer of the Potomac Metro Orange Hats and a member of the Barney Circle Orange Hats. He worked with neighbors to keep the Southeast Freeway from connecting to route 295, through their Barney Circle neighborhood; and Will has been the leader in the fight to keep Boys Town from coming into the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Will lives with his mother, Minnie B. Hill. Every NewYear’s Day for the last twenty-five years they have said to neighbors old and new, “Let’s get together,” with a reception at their home, where everyone brings food which represents their family’s New Year’s traditions. Will estimates that about 85 people are usually there and thinks that now they might show up even without an invitation. Someday he and the neighbors who help him plan the event would like to turn it into the basis of a community cook book.

Will Hill grew up in a small town, Culpeper, Virginia, where he learned, among other things, the value of hard work. At 14 he got a job at a jewelry store and began earning his own clothing money. When he graduated from high school, where he was very active, he was voted his class’s “Best Dressed” student. He also worked as a bell hop at the Lord Culpeper Hotel before deciding he wanted to move on to the big city. Early jobs in D.C. included being a stock clerk in a sporting goods store and a messenger at a bank. Eventually he became a teller there. But at the same time he was learning the printing business. For ten years he ran “Will’s Printing Company” on 8th Street near the old Capitol Hill Hospital. He then worked for Capitol Hill Hospital’s print shop, until its closing. Will decided to go into something different and got the job with the Senate. He hopes to work there until he has ten years of government service; then he’ll retire and spend more time doing community work and tending his day lilies, peonies and irises. Describing his varied career, Will says that “one door would always open another door.”

Will loves Washington and his neighborhood in particular, which he sees as getting better with the changes that happen every year. He says the people are friendly and look out for each other. Will himself, of course, is a prime example of that as the neighbor often called on to hold a spare key, water the plants or care for the pets when neighbors are away. He’s the kind of person we’d all like to have living next door to us.