At Memory Cafés, People With Dementia and Caregivers Get to Be ‘Just People’

Participants build bonds while sharing a cup of tea, a craft or a song

Kim Painter

Updated November 11, 2025

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Published December 06, 2021

/ Updated November 11, 2025

Two women together at a memory café gathering

Dawn Seestedt and her aunt Rosa "Taty" Bracero look forward to their monthly memory café gatherings at TALMAR gardens in Parkville, Md.

AARP Studios

On a brilliant fall morning, Dawn Seestedt, 62, and her aunt Rosa “Taty” Bracero, 96, are in their happy place: heads bent together, hands at work, in a circle of friends, outdoors, amid trees and gardens.

They are at the TALMAR gardens and expressive therapy center in Parkville, Maryland, a “little secluded heavenly space,” Seestedt says, where she and her aunt, who has dementia, can be found on the third Friday morning of each month.

That’s when TALMAR hosts a memory café: a place where people with memory loss and their caregivers can share an activity, enjoy one another’s company and “make memories together,” says Emily Kearns, coordinator of Dementia Friendly Baltimore County.

The café at TALMAR is among nearly 600 regular gatherings listed on the Memory Cafe Alliance website of Dementia Friendly America. Some are held in actual cafés. Others are found at libraries, gardens, museums, recreation centers, community centers and faith-based facilities.

“Each one has its own personality,” Kearns says. But those that stick closely to a model introduced in Holland in 1997 share a mission, she says: that people with memory challenges and the people who care for them should have a place where they can experience “pure joy, connection and a sense of community.”

A morning of activities and memories

TALMAR’s café is set amid rolling lawns, white barns and organic gardens, on the grounds of Cromwell Valley Park, a few miles outside Baltimore. On cold days, the group meets in a greenhouse, says Kate Joyce, TALMAR’s executive director.

But this crisp, sunny morning finds Seestedt and Bracero sitting outside at a round picnic table with several other people, sipping mint tea. The mint leaves are from a nearby sensory garden that some of them helped plant.

The group includes Charlie Conklin, 88, an active community volunteer who has dementia and still gets places on his own. He says he comes for the upbeat conversation and because it’s good “to stay active and not stay home and watch television all day.”

To find a memory cafe near you, visit Dementia Friendly America's Memory Cafe Alliance at: https://dfamerica.org/memory-cafe-directory/

A man and woman together at a memory café gathering

Charlie Conklin and Gerrie Adams painted acorns to make necklaces and enjoy each other’s company at an October memory café at TALMAR gardens.

AARP Studios

Also at the table are Rina Adams, 51, and her mother, Gerrie, 75. Rina says she and her mom, who has dementia, go to other memory cafés in the area, but this one is her favorite “because I love being in nature outside with mom.”

Then there’s Marlene Edwards, 75, who is a caregiver for an aunt with dementia. Her aunt often doesn’t want to come to the café, she says, so she comes on her own. “I don’t want to miss it,” she says. Edwards says she especially loves to see Bracero, a tiny lady originally from Puerto Rico who speaks little but smiles often.

“The first day I met her, she hugged me and gave me a kiss and let me know that I was welcome,” Edwards says. She says she and Seestedt have become friends, too.

This morning, Joyce spreads the table with acorns, beads, paint, bells and other supplies and invites the participants to make necklaces or door knockers. “There are no rules,” she says.

With her head next to her aunt’s, Seestedt helps the older lady thread acorns and beads together for a necklace. It’s a natural activity for Bracero, she says, who used to sew all her family’s clothing.

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“Give Taty a needle and thread and she’s going to be sewing,” Seestedt tells the group.

As the crafting session winds down, the teapot makes a second round. Conklin pours fresh servings for the others and then lifts his own cup to his nose: “That does smell great,” he says.

The gathering ends with a treat for Bracero, who loves to dance. Joyce turns on some salsa music and invites everyone to stand and dance. With a little nudge from Seestedt, Bracero starts a gentle cha-cha motion. Seestedt, holding her hand, dances along. And then Edwards grasps Bracero’s other hand and dances, too.

What memory cafés are — and aren’t

A memory café isn’t a support group, per se. While caregivers and people with dementia may naturally talk about their experiences and share information, that’s not on the official agenda, says Jim Mangi, chairman of the board of Dementia Friendly Services (DFS) in Saline, Michigan. Such discussions are “the stealth component,” he says.

Memory cafés also aren’t respite services: Caregivers shouldn’t expect to drop off the loved one and leave.

The point is enjoying an activity with each other and with other people, says Lori Venable, who is the memory care café coordinator at DFS.

“One of the worst things for somebody with dementia is the social isolation,” Venable says. Caregivers get isolated, too, she says, but “nobody should feel alone on this journey.”

One testament to the power of café experiences, Mangi says, is that “we have a number of caregivers who keep coming after their loved one has passed away.”

In one case, he says, a former caregiver has become a steady volunteer at the cafés the DFS hosts at a church in Ann Arbor. That star volunteer, he notes, is 100 years old.

The activities at memory cafés can include crafts, gardening, singing, dancing, game playing or whatever organizers think will work for the group. Gatherings vary from just a few people to dozens. Food and drink are usually served.

The Ann Arbor cafés, which attract large crowds, usually feature a professional entertainer, such as a magician or musician, and then a hands-on activity, Venable says. Sometimes the two elements overlap, like when a regular participant who plays the bass joins a visiting music act or when the entertainment is the DFS Moments in Time Choir, made up of people with dementia, caregivers and “just people who like to sing,” Venable says.

Four women around a table during a bingo event at a memory café gathering

Ashley Parker (left) and her mother, Betti Watters, play bingo with Kennicia Yarrington of the Ebony Pearls Foundation assisting.

Central Mississippi Area Agency on Aging

Across the state, in Lansing, AARP long hosted a memory café with a karaoke theme, called Ethel’s Place (after AARP founder Ethel Percy Andrus). “Some participants might not have been able to carry on a conversation, but they could sing Frank Sinatra like you wouldn’t believe,” says Rich Howard, associate state director for outreach. AARP Michigan now acts as a sponsor and partner for memory cafés run by other organizations, including the Greater Lansing Care Foundation, Howard says.

Meanwhile, a new memory café in Jackson, Mississippi, has adopted the Ethel’s Place name, says Kimberly Campbell, state director of AARP Mississippi. Participants at the first few Ethel’s Place sessions have painted, danced, played games and made friends, she says. At a memory café, she says, no one is defined by a diagnosis. “They’re just people living a full life again.”

Strengthening family bonds

Kearns has organized cafés for more than a decade, first in Massachusetts and now in Maryland. She says she’s witnessed many wonderful moments. Some of the best, she says, are when family members reconnect with one another.

She recalls a café where everyone was dancing. A husband and wife began to cry with happiness as they waltzed the wife’s mother around a dance floor in her wheelchair. “For that brief moment, they weren’t changing her Depends, they weren’t bathing her, they weren’t giving her food, they weren’t doing medication management,” Kearns says. “They were really enjoying each other … as whole beings and as a whole family.”

Seestedt says that she enjoys many moments with her aunt, who is “just overflowing with love and affection for everybody,” and a favorite everywhere she goes. But the memory café at TALMAR is special, she says: “The rest of the world just fades away.… It’s this special place where you’re going to feel good and have fun.”

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Kim Painter is a contributing writer who specializes in health and psychology. She frequently writes for AARP's Staying Sharp and previously worked as a health reporter and columnist at USA Today.

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