A 10-year-old girl in Pulaski County has started her own nonprofit to make sure foster children in Arkansas never show up to a new home with nothing to hold onto. Lillie-Jade Williams founded Lillie-Jade's Lovies to hand out stuffed animals that foster kids get to keep for themselves, no matter where they end up next.
The idea came out of her own family's life as foster parents, according to KATV, which reports that Williams wanted to give kids something that was truly theirs. “So we're a foster family, and I wanted to get them something that they can always have with them,” she said, per the station's report.
Her mother, Jourdan Williams, said the nonprofit began taking shape after one particularly difficult placement, when a child had not been able to pack favorite items such as a blanket, stuffed animal, or lovey. “That baby didn't get to, you know, pack her favorite things, her blanket, her stuffed animal, her loveys,” Jourdan Williams said, according to the same account. Lillie-Jade responded by gathering stuffed animals straight from her own room and telling her mother the family would find a way to help, the station reports.
A Family Project That Grew Into a Logo and a Mission
From there, the project grew quickly. Lillie-Jade drew a logo for the nonprofit on a sketch pad, and her mother said she wanted the effort to model Christ through something as simple as a stuffed animal, per KATV's reporting. Jourdan Williams also noted that the number of children in Arkansas's foster system is very large, and Lillie-Jade has said she wishes her mother could drive her to meet every foster child in the state.
Lillie-Jade told the station that watching kids pick out their new stuffed animals is one of the best parts of running the nonprofit. Lillie-Jade's Lovies now has Facebook and Instagram pages, and it accepts both donated stuffed animals and financial support through PayPal, Cash App and Venmo, the outlet notes.
Burgers, Bears and a Zoo Visit on the Calendar
The nonprofit held a Burgers and Bears event Tuesday night at David's Burgers in North Little Rock, where customers ordering a normal burger had some of the proceeds routed to Lillie-Jade's Lovies. Lillie-Jade is also scheduled to speak this coming Saturday as part of the Youth Leadership Program at the Clinton Presidential Library Public School Service, and the nonprofit has a Lions and Bears event planned at the Little Rock Zoo toward the end of November.
Arkansas's foster system remains sizable even as it shrinks. State figures from the Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services show 3,553 children were in foster care at the end of state fiscal year 2024, a 12 percent drop from the 4,023 recorded the year before. The same report found that children five years old or younger made up 36 percent of all kids in care, and that the state had 1,369 licensed foster family homes open statewide at the close of that fiscal year.
Young Advocates Elsewhere Have Found Similar Ways to Help
Lillie-Jade is not the only young person turning personal experience with foster care into a project for other kids. In Leicestershire, England, an 11-year-old named Millie created her own teddy-bear tradition, buying two identical bears, one for herself and one for a foster child in her family, then swapping them when the child eventually leaves the home, according to the BBC. Millie's family was approved to foster in 2022 and had welcomed five foster children by the time of that report, with Leicestershire County Council saying it provides specialist support for foster carers' own children to help new arrivals feel settled and welcomed.
Back in Arkansas, a similar story has played out in Jonesboro, where AP News reported on a teen who created a nonprofit of her own to help foster children. For now, Lillie-Jade's Lovies is keeping its focus close to home, relying on donated stuffed animals, small digital payments and community events like the one at David's Burgers to keep stocking up for the next child who arrives with nothing but the clothes on their back.
