NAHANT — The Nahant Council on Aging, Nahant Public Library, and Nahant Village Church are banding together to fight the confusion and isolation of Alzheimer’s disease.
Beginning Nov. 8 from 10 a.m. to noon, people with the disease or other dementias and their care partners will meet at the library for conversation, refreshments, music, art, and storytelling.
The cafe will continue on the second Thursday of each month with performances or stories.
The Memory Cafe is part of an international movement to provide meaningful activities for people with memory impairment and for their caregivers. In Nahant, it is part of a larger project to create a dementia-friendly town.
It is estimated that more than 100 Nahant residents may be experiencing dementia, and nearly 170 residents may be family caregivers, according to library director Sharon Hawkes.
Greater Lynn Senior Services, which also hosts a cafe at the Lynn Museum, will help get the Nahant Cafe underway. Guest artists and presenters will add their talents to create an engaging morning for the guests.
The acoustic duo The Joneses will lead off with nostalgic tunes.
Federal grants from the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the National Library of Medicine will allow the library to offer music and memory kits for loan, and downloadable music, audiobooks, and movies online.
In February, the seasonal Nahant Reads Together town-wide read will focus on reading and learning more about dementia.
The Dementia Friendly Nahant project is funded by federal grants from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health and through the University of Massachusetts, Worcester, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and is administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.
The National Network of Libraries of Medicine funds projects to improve access to health information.
All Memory Cafe gatherings will be free. Registration is preferred by not required. For more information and to register, contact Sharon Hawkes at Nahant Library at 781-581-0306.
