Vermont Business Magazine Burlington’s first memory cafe — a monthly social event for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia — has launched a website with a grant from AARP Vermont. The website, www.queencitymemorycafe.com, links to the cafe’s Facebook page and provides resources for people living with dementia or memory loss. The free cafe is a community initiative that offers an informal, stigma-free setting to help relieve the isolation often felt by people living with dementia and their caregivers.
Each cafe features a fun, loosely structured program led by a community volunteer. The cafe meets the third Saturday of each month at Thayer House at 1197 North Ave.
To create the website and broaden its outreach, the cafe received a $2,500 AARP Community Action Sponsorship grant.
“The Queen City Memory Cafe offers a unique and much-needed resource in our community. It places value on the importance of socialization and intergenerational and multicultural connections for older residents at risk of being isolated and forgotten,”says Kelly Stoddard Poor, AARP Vermont director of outreach.
A volunteer steering committee runs the independent, grassroots cafe, established in 2014 in response to a projected increase in Vermonters living with dementia. More than 12,000 Vermonters — including about 2,000 in Chittenden County — live with dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. That number is projected to increase 41 percent by 2025, when more than 17,000 Vermonters may have dementia.
“The cafes are always uplifting, whether we’re listening to music, creating art or appreciating students doing improv comedy. Everyone shares in the warm atmosphere we’ve created. I’m glad other cafes are springing up around the state to serve our neighbors who are living with dementia. From my own family experiences, I know what a difference the cafe makes for our participants,” says cafe steering committee member Janet Nunziata, associate director for education with the Center on Aging at the University of Vermont.
The steering committee welcomes inquiries from people interested in being a committee member or monthly program leader and from high school and college students who want to volunteer. The website has information about those opportunities. Medical students in UVM’s Larner College of Medicine volunteer regularly at the cafe.
The first memory cafe was established in the Netherlands in the ’90s, according to some sources. Cafes now operate around the United States and in other countries. Bennington, Middlebury, Montpelier, Rutland and White River Junction have cafes. The Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront Department plans to start a cafe at the Champlain Senior Center this fall.
Source: BURLINGTON, VERMONT — AARP