Monticello nonprofit set to celebrate its centennial
Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Family Services will be marking its 100th year in style.
The Monticello-based nonprofit cares for about 100 youngsters, ages 6-21, every year who are in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ Division of Children and Family Services or the Division of Youth Services.
Arkansas native and radio/ TV personality Bobby Bones headlines the Centennial Celebration Luncheon, 11:30 a.m.1:15 p.m. March 15 in the Rock Island Room at the Embassy Suites in Little Rock, 11301 Financial Centre Parkway.
The luncheon lineup will also feature Eddie Garcia, the video producer of “The Bobby Bones Show” and himself a foster and adoptive parent.
Leading the nonprofit’s fundraising initiatives are Matt Lewis, who chairs the Vera Lloyd board, and Tommy Maxwell, who chairs the board of the Vera Lloyd Foundation.
The former board guides the day-to-day operations of the nonprofit; the latter handles more of a long-term outlook.
“The board has representatives from all over the state, from different professional backgrounds,” Lewis says. Maxwell praises them as “a great group of men and women.”
“I’ve been on that board, too,” he adds. “I’ve ‘graduated’ to this one. It’s a lot harder to leave once you’re involved.”
Maxwell got involved with Vera Lloyd in part because his company — he’s the chairman and CEO of Maxwell Hardwood Flooring Inc. — is in Monticello, but indirectly: he and a Little Rock lawyer who had “made a donation or two” connected “and one thing led to another.”
“I’ve enjoyed it ever since,” he says. “It has been a rewarding experience.”
In particular, he notes, at a recent “alumni” reunion of people who had gone through the program, “I got to listen to their stories, which were touching and uplifting,” he says. “There were even
couples who had met there and married.”
Vera Lloyd’s mission is “to heal, prepare and empower children, youth and families in need … through comprehensive services available to youth who live at the organization’s residential homes in Monticello, as well as foster and adoptive parents.”
The organization actually got its start in 1910 when Lulu Williamson joined other Monticello women to open a day nursery, which made it possible for women to work at a time when there were few childcare options.
It became a more permanent place for children when Williamson took in a pair of abandoned twins. More children were left at the nursery because of family illness or poverty, and she realized the need for a home for abandoned children in southeast Arkansas. The Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Home for Children was established as a Presbyterian ministry in 1923.
Lloyd, who lived in Marianna, provided financial support for the mission, with the stipulation in her will that the home bear her name. Annie B. Wells donated 1,059 acres of timberland near Monticello to provide a location for the campus that now bears her name.
That campus, located just north of the University of Arkansas at Monticello on the southeast side of the Drew County seat, has shrunk over the years as timberland has been sold off and the town of Monticello has grown, but it has grown from a single building in 1923 to seven homes, a gym, an on-site school, a computer lab, a pavilion and a low-ropes course for outdoor activities.
Lewis says the centennial luncheon, at $100 a ticket, is expected to raise $150,000 toward the half-million it will take to complete the renovations to the gym.
Though the nonprofit is licensed to serve children as young as 6, most of the on-campus residents are 1317. All of them are in state custody, removed from their homes due to issues of abuse or neglect, or are returning home after spending time in the juvenile justice system.
“For decades we primarily served foster children,” Lewis explains, but over the past decade Vera Lloyd has been evolving, adding programs and expanding its mission to include youngsters in the custody of the Department of Youth Services.
Lewis, retired from the U.S. Air Force, still works at the Little Rock Air Force Base, as a pilot instructor in simulators for CymSTAR.
And though his son and daughter do much of the running of his company, Maxwell says, “I still go to work every day; I sign a lot of checks, shake a lot of hands, pat a lot of backs.”
He admits that the reason Vera Lloyd isn’t better known is because it has been “quietly effective,” he says. “We’ve never been rabble-rousers or tooted our own horn.”
Five years ago the organization went through a reorganization that among other things involved re-balancing the boards. Maxwell calls it “a real eye-opener” and says it has made Vera Lloyd work much better.
“We’ve had a good run,” Lewis confirms. “We have a great staff and fantastic donors,” including folks in several Presbyterian churches across the state and grants from Arkansas foundations.
“We’re now a Medicare provider,” he adds. “We can provide counseling ourselves instead of bringing in personnel from outside the campus.”
For the future, he foresees “meeting the new needs of our guests,” including providing more help with behavioral and mental health and addiction. “Kids, unfortunately, have much more hurt. Vera Lloyd is sometimes the very first and best thing in their lives.”
“Kids need,” Maxwell adds. “And their needs are not getting smaller.”
Tickets to Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Family Services’ Centennial Celebration Luncheon are $100. The organization will also honor 10 donors and eight Presbyterian churches that have been giving for 25 years or more. Visit