MON-BIJOU COMMUNITY CENTER

CRAIG LLOYD, DIRECTOR

Craig Lloyd, formally known as Cie in the Virgin Islands, is the Director of the Mon-Bijou Center in St. Croix. He was born in New York City, but his family, the Roebucks and the Finches who live in in Estate Solitude, are from St. Croix. He visited St. Croix for the first time in 1969 and ended up living with his parents. Shortly after moving to St. Croix,  Mr. Lloyd found it difficult to stay out of trouble. “According to society and my parents, I was a big problem. I was troublemaker in school, some people called me a bully. I was in the boys home down here,” said Lloyd. He attended Juanita Gardine and was one of the first students in Pearl B. Larsen when it first opened. He then moved back to New York where he also found it hard to stay out of trouble and was very rebellious. “Many people told me I was going to get into trouble with the gangs when I got to NYC, so I was determined to show them I wasn’t going to fall in that category,” said Lloyd. “I got into trouble until I became a Muslim. When I became a Muslim, I started seeing the difference in life where I needed to change my life. I started getting back into school, realizing how important education is for your future. That was the beginning of me transforming and changing my life,” shared Mr. Lloyd. The transformation wasn’t easy. He struggled with the dynamics of NYC, his Muslim practices and leaving his old life behind and was incarcerated for 3 years in NYC. “In the time I was incarcerated, that is when I started getting more serious about my education. Instead of lifting weights and playing basketball I became more deeply interested in school. I started thinking differently such as, what it means to be in the world.”

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Mr. Lloyd got his G.E.D. and took business and management classes. At his release hearing, the Board acknowledged Lloyd's will to change for the better and he was released to the USVI in 1985. “When you come back to St. Croix, you have a reputation from the last time that you left. What I learned about St. Croix and what I try to teach the younger generation about St. Croix is that whatever you do when you’re smaller in the Virgin Islands, it may stay with you for the rest of your life. When I came back in 1985, I was known as a bad boy, a trouble maker and I was just coming out of jail so of course that made it very hard for me to get a job,” explained Mr. Lloyd. 

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When he came out, Mr. Lloyd had a passion for helping children who were deemed "troublemakers". However, he couldn’t get positions due to his record and reputation. “After being in incarcerated, society makes it very hard for you to do these things. You can’t work in the jails, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. So, there were a lot of stumbling blocks when I was trying to do what I wanted to do. But, when people set up obstacles for me, it just makes me stronger. When I know that I’m doing something positive, it makes me find ways to try to get around the obstacles,” said Mr. Lloyd. 

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He began a horse program with 4-H soon after returning. “I’ve always loved horses. When I came back to the Virgin Islands, I saw horses as being a tool that could support the reformation of children. The program would serve as an incentive to further their education.” Unfortunately, the government was against the program.

       The Mon-Bijou Center was a dream of Mr. Lloyd’s from childhood. He was raised in Mon-Bijou. “I was one of the first people who moved into Mon-Bijou from since it was dirt road. My mother still lives in Mon-Bijou, so I always wanted to come back.” He quickly found out that he would need to be very organized if he wanted to establish a community center in the neighborhood. Mon-Bijou had an established homeowner’s association, programs for kids and his record was not helpful in establishing his credibility. 

BUILDING THE MON-BIJOU COMMUNITY CENTER

The Mon-Bijou Center was established in 1976. When Mr. Lloyd came back to Mon-Bijou, he ran a summer camp then moved out of Mon-Bijou for 15 years. While he was living in Solitude he told his cousin his plan to move back into Mon-Bijou and work with the Center. “At the time, I really didn’t know that this was the calling and that this is what God had planned for me. The reason I say that is because once I came into Mon-Bijou, with all the struggles, He still provided a way for me to get there. I had a god-brother who told me that they were ready to give up the Mon-Bijou Center and that he thought I could be the one to run it. He wanted me to come up there and they voted me in as being the president in 1991,” explained Mr. Lloyd.

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He had a quite a challenge ahead. The Center was abandoned and there was bush around the building. Reandmarkably, even though the weatherhead was down and there was bush inside, the building still had current. Mr. Lloyd had no idea how he was going to clean it up, but he reached out to a woman named Ms. Santana for help. She is known for volunteering her time to cleanup Lagoon in Christiansted by cutting the grass and planting all the trees that are still there today. “I thought if she could volunteer her time to make that happen, then I could volunteer my services to help clean up the Center and I started my program with only volunteers, no grants. My motto was that once I started this and the government and everyone else saw the work that I’m putting in, then I would start getting help,” explained Mr. Lloyd. Within 6 months the Center was suitable to move in to. “One of the main people I worked with was ex- Senator, Ronald Russell, who was the first person that secured money for the Mon-Bijou Center,” said Mr. Lloyd gratefully. After they received that funding, they starting holding music classes and held a summer camp. It’s been over 10 years that they’ve been successfully hosting summer camps and after school camps. Shortly after that, the community began to take notice. They received a Block grant and were approved for other grants to hold programs. 

AFFORDABLE PROGRAMS FOR THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

The Mon-Bijou Center is a community youth center that provides programs for children that include after school educational programs, summer camps, singing, modeling, dancing, music production, graphic design and t-shirt design. The Center aims to support any positive programs that youth are involved in that keep them in school. They also help the senior citizens in the community by holding free computer classes. Above all, the programs, except for the summer camps, are free. Mr. Lloyd expressed his concern for the lack of affordable programs in the territory. “When I was young and coming up, there were a lot of kids that couldn’t be in a lot of programs because they couldn’t afford it. So, I try to provide a lot of programs for free. What makes it hard though, is that, there are a lot of people that say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” which is true and I understand that and I believe in that, but what I don’t believe in is that we should be charging the village. Once any student completes a program the children are eligible for any program that they have there for free,” explained Mr. Lloyd.
He also stressed the need for people to be reasonable, especially in the Virgin Islands, when first starting out at any non-profit. “Most of the programs and people that you go to for help who are qualified for these positions, if there isn’t money involved, it’s very hard to get them to volunteer and the ones who volunteer think that because it’s a volunteer position, they can come when they want and do what they want; and working with other programs, I learned that a volunteer is supposed to work the same as a paid worker, so they could be trustworthy and committed.
I don’t know everything and therefore, I cannot teach everything. And I don’t feel like that is my job. But my job is to look for other people that see the dreams that I’m seeing as far as what we need in the community and stop saying that there’s nothing happening in the community and let’s do something in the community” said Mr. Lloyd.

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

“If I, a person who has been in jail and got my G.E.D., could figure out how to apply for these grants, anyone can do it. At the beginning, I would get frustrated and tell my team, "I can’t do this anymore", but they kept pushing me and saying all you have do is x and y, and that’s why I’m here today. Let’s get some more of these centers into different communities. Let’s stop talking about the idea that there’s nothing to do in the Virgin Islands and make things to do. In all reality, no matter how much we love the Virgin Islands, we’re killing it. We’re running all of kids away because there’s nothing to do here.

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Furthermore, Mr. Lloyd, shared that many local artists are frustrated with the lack of opportunity in the Virgin Islands. There are few to no studios available for musicians on island.

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Mr. Lloyd also discussed the lack of cooperation between non-profit, for-profit organizations and the government in the VI. For example, he noted that each election cycle, candidates for governor and senator send away for their t-shirts to be made in the states. However, the Mon-Bijou Community Center has a fully equipped graphic design and printing press where the kids make t-shirts. He has been confused as to why the candidates and other local organizations do not use the facilities when the price is cheaper and it’s made in the Virgin Islands. 

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CLASSES & CURRICULUM

Y.G.T. stands for Young, Gifted & Talented. “Any child is Young, Gifted & Talented, that’s what we feel. But we also feel that some of them are robbed of their talent, because we don’t have places in the Virgin Islands that can help them express their talent. This is one of the reasons why we have the Center.

The classes held at the Center are all aligned with the school’s curriculum because the students get credit for it. For example, the students who take music classes learn how to read music and can apply these credits to their music requirement in school. “We have some of the best musicians here that can play music, but a lot of our best musicians don’t know how to read music.”  In reaching out to others in the community Lloyd learned that when artists visit the island they have to come with their own band because our artists don’t know how to read music. 

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In Lloyd’s experience, once students get out of school, if they don’t drop into one of the bands, there is nothing happening for music in the VI. They realized the Center would be a great place to create these classes. The name of the band is: Y.G.T. The Band. The Center is not just for Mon-Bijou. “My community is St. Croix, not just Mon-Bijou,” said Mr. Lloyd.

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Currently the original Mon-Bijou Center, which is right across the street from the new building, can hold 75 students . The new building can hold 60 people. The goal is to be able to host different programs at the same time. For example, he can host dancing in the new building and modeling in the old building. He is trying to buy the land next door and expand the building to include a senior citizens park with a children’s park in the middle.

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Other projects down the line include creating a local radio station and revamping the Graffiti Street show. 

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CALL TO ACTION

Mr. Lloyd applies for Federal grants and not local grants. “If more people applied for my grants there would be more music facilities. Lloyd identifies a need for and then applies for grants to fund programs to fit that need. “For example, I wouldn’t have gotten involved in basketball if it wasn’t for a league. I love Calypso music, but I’m not trying to get too into Calypso music because I feel that we have a market here for it and those who are doing it are doing a good job,” explained Mr. Lloyd. Reggae, I’m not too involved in that, but I feel Tippy is doing a great job with it. What I realized is that not too many people are working with R&B and Hip-Hop.  We have a lot of singers who have converted from R&B and Hip-Hop to Calypso because there is no market here. If you notice, those are the genres we focus on here. I have nothing else against Calypso & Reggae, but I feel I can be more useful if I can open up gaps in the music genres here,” explained Mr. Lloyd.