Memory Café 2025 Public Awareness Campaign

The Memory Café Alliance, powered by Dementia Friendly America (DFA) through USAging, a member of AARP’s Brain Health Action Collaborative, hosted a contest to raise public awareness of Memory Cafés and to showcase their impact through creative social media posts.

Memory Cafés are inclusive social gatherings for people living with changes in their memory or thinking and the people who care about them. The goal is to bring people together and provide opportunities to connect and engage in interactive programming, ranging from visual arts to storytelling and local history. Each café is locally organized and tailored to community needs, with the larger network of Memory Cafés spanning the United States.

For the contest, Memory Café leaders and participants were invited to share posts that highlight the joy, connection, and unique value of Memory Cafés as vital community spaces that promote brain health and facilitate social gatherings for people with cognitive changes and their care partners.

Originally announced on Nov. 18, 2025 at DFA’s virtual Dementia Friendsgiving event, the winners of the four categories are:

Most creative: Sonoma Valley Memory Cafe in Sonoma, Calif. View their video.

Most inspiring: Memory Cafe at the JCC in Pittsburgh, Pa. View their video.

Most impact: LIFE a Dementia Friendly Foundation in Oberlin, Ohio. View their video.

Best overall: Forget-Me-Knot in Wilmington, N.C. View their video.

Each received a $2,500 prize to support their efforts, courtesy of AARP.

Additionally, five prizes of $100 each were awarded to randomly selected contest entrants, made possible by a donation in honor of Ken Opdyke: North Shore Senior Center Memory Cafe (Northfield, Ill.); Memory Connections (Athens, Ga.); JCC New Orleans Memory Cafe (New Orleans, La.); Musical Memory Cafe Lockport (Lockport, N.Y.); and Library Memory Project (Waukesha, Ill.).

Watch the awards ceremony here. (Memory Cafe Awards begin around the 1:01:00 timestamp.)