DEMENTIA FRIENDLY COMMUNITY INITIATIVE - WALWORTH COUNTY
Elkhorn, WI
Website | Phone: (262) 320-7325
Mission
Our mission is to ensure businesses, faith communities, organizations, and service providers, as well as individuals, are equipped to serve and properly communicate with individuals affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia and their caregivers.
The stories tell our mission. It is two-fold. The first is to educate our community on how to best communicate with those individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia to avoid conflict situations. To know how to treat them with dignity and respect. To help ensure that they live the best lives that they can. Second is providing experiences that make a difference in their lives. To date we have trained over 7,000 individuals. The goal is to decrease and eventually eliminate the stigma of Alzheimer’s and dementia in our community.
Community Resources
We have trained police, first responders, civil employees, businesses, churches and groups on how to best communicate with people with Alzheimer's and dementia. We look to develop programs that allow them to integrate into activities in the community to lessen the stigma of Alzheimer’s and dementia. To that end we started the first Memory Café in Walworth County. There are now 6. A special program is Cycling without Age, where we reach out to senior apartments, nursing homes and assisted living and provide outings to their residents that have been isolated, allowing them the opportunity to enjoy nature at its best. This program not only engages our community, but also impacts the quality of life for everyone, both the volunteers and recipients, by increasing social connections and providing the opportunity for the enjoyment of life, nature, memories, and being young at heart, once again, which cannot be duplicated! And, with a partnership developed with Emagine Theaters in Lake Geneva, there is a program called “No Hush Movies” on the second Wednesday of every month at 1:30. All this is in addition to the Cycling Without Age program.
Most Urgent Need
With the explosive growth of the Cycling Without Age program, and the increasing number of requests to service additional locations that have many more individuals that can’t be handled in the usual 2 hour time frame with 2 bikes, we need to purchase a vehicle that will allow us to bring at least 4 of our trishaws (electric cargo bikes) to a single location at one time. By working with many businesses and organizations, we will be able to reach our goal.
