For a nonprofit organization hosting a golf tournament to raise money, you couldn't do better than having a PGA Tour professional as the event chairman. And the Home for Healing in Little Rock has managed to do just that.
Neil Day, business banker at Simmons Bank in Little Rock and a veteran PGA pro, is serving as the volunteer chairman of the Home for Healing's 15th Annual Golf Classic set for April 26 at the Burns Park Golf Course in North Little Rock. The tournament can field up to 36, four-person teams for a scramble with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start. Lunch will be served at 11 a.m.
Day says golf tournaments are great fundraisers because they bring people together.
"I've been on both ends of them [golf tournaments]," Day says. "I've facilitated them, and now I'm on the fundraising side of those. And I don't really think I've had an organization ever come to me and say 'This just isn't profitable to us.'"
Over the years, the Home for Healing, a nonprofit facility that provides free lodging for parents of babies in local NICUs, cancer patients and their caregivers, and families of patients in ICUs, has had great community support, Day says. He adds that the tournament provides a way to thank the community for helping Home for Healing, which is funded entirely by private donations, grants and fundraisers. The event also helps raise awareness of the home and its mission.
"We can talk about the home, talk about the mission, about the stories and the successes, how many times the bell was rung this week; whatever it may be just to spread the word," Days says. A Home for Healing tradition is that patients who are ready to leave the facility and go back home, ring a bell in the lobby of home, located at 4300 W. Markham St., across from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, as they depart.
Day, a native of Wilkesboro, N.C., first moved to Arkansas to work as a golf professional for the Country Club of Little Rock. In 2007, he moved back to North Carolina, but returned a year and a half later to Arkansas and to his future wife, Lindann, whom he met at the country club. He took a position at the Alotian Golf Club in Roland where he worked three seasons.
Next, he went to the Diamante Country Club in Hot Springs Village before accepting the club professional position at the Pine Bluff Country Club where he worked for seven years. While in Pine Bluff, he became acquainted with Simmons Bank, which was founded in Pine Bluff, and was offered a position at its Little Rock offices in 2020.
Day started his career at Simmons in business development, and it was through this role he became involved with the Home for Healing. A colleague from Simmons introduced him to the home, and Day participated in the Monster Bash, a Halloween-theme fundraising event, which will take place this year on Oct. 25. Day became especially interested in the facility's mission through a video interview with families served by the home that was presented at the bash.
"At that time, my second son was not born, and ... just the reality hit me of what families are going through here with their newborn child ... knowing they're under the best care they can possibly be, but not knowing what the outcome will be; to be able to come here and have peace of mind, and still not feel separated and be close, to have compassionate staff and to have a network of folks outside of the home volunteering to support their stay," Day says.
And speaking of volunteers, Day will also present the Home for Healing's Volunteer of the Year award to the Monster Bash Decorations Committee at the golf tournament, says Megan Boswell, development director for the home.
Day, who will be serving as chairman of the golf tournament this year and in 2025, says it isn't too late to put a team together and sign up.
"Early spring tournaments are always late-entry tournaments," Day says. "We find that the interest is there early, but the commitment always comes a little bit later."
For more information on the tournament, visit homeforhealing.org; email Day at [email protected] or Boswell at [email protected].
Neil Day moved to Arkansas to work as a golf professional for the Country Club of Little Rock. Now he is chairing Home for Healing’s 15th Annual Golf Classic set for April 26 at the Burns Park Golf Course in North Little Rock. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)