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In the mid-1990s, former President Ronald Reagan’s public battle with Alzheimer’s disease inspired many families of dementia patients to finally seek information, education and support. In response to the community’s need, the Alzheimer’s Association Greater Baton Rouge chapter prepared to open a resource center in 1996. Rather than select a health care professional to lead the organization, the board instead recruited a young fundraiser. “I think they believed: No money, no mission,” says Beth Veazey, who accepted the offer to run a part-time, one-woman agency from a closet-sized office.

As Veazey methodically built a stable funding base and population-specific programs for the 10-parish territory, the national affiliate centralized operations and limited its chapter activity to fundraising for the national office and disseminating brochures and toll-free numbers. By 2000, the Baton Rouge board decided to sever ties with the Chicago headquarters. “It’s a scary road to go down. We [received] only two calls from people who thought we would lose a lot of money from the national organization,” she says. “But we were paying dues, so it freed up money for other programs.”

Eight years later, Alzheimer’s Services of the Capital Area thrives with 11 full-time employees offering an array of services in a 6,500-square-foot North Boulevard office. The agency provides a helpline, socials co-sponsored by the Junior League, lunch-and-learn programs, legal and medical workshops for caregivers, memory and healthy aging programs and conferences featuring nationally renowned researchers.

Not only has Alzheimer’s Services’ organizational structure become a benchmark for nonprofits breaking free of their national affiliates, so has its new flagship program, Charlie’s Place.

Since the community’s existing respite services focused on mid- to late-stage patients, Veazey began amassing support in 2005 to create a short-term respite center to give early-stage patients’ caregivers the break they desperately need. Even before its October 2007 opening, Charlie’s Place had a waiting list. “There have been a lot of Charlies—Charlie Lamar, Charlie Valluzzo and others who have contributed to the organization. And, with the name, there’s no anxiety of going to the Alzheimer’s respite care center.”

The center has the ambiance of a friend’s home with a courtyard garden and fountain, living room, dining room, even a bedroom for an ill or exhausted patient. The center provides social interaction and memory-enhancing activities such as planting tomatoes or even visits to the Old State Capitol and lunch at Piccadilly.

“We always try to think about, ‘What would I want for myself or my spouse’?” Veazey explains. Statistics justify that approach. “One in eight people over the age of 65 and one in two people over the age of 85 will develop Alzheimer’s, so it’s not so rare,” she says. “Chances are you will either have it or take care of someone who does.” Typically, patients live an average of eight years with the disease, some as long as 20 years.

Despite the 18-month turnover typical at nonprofits, Veazey has worked with patients and families battling a non-curable, degenerative disease for more than a decade. “My goodness, look what we are doing—making a significant difference in those who are coping,” she says. “We’ve taken an organization that had little name recognition to one with value for the families who need it. Now if we took the organization away, we would be missed. Where would families go?”