Mary M. Barnes, president and CEO of Alzheimer’s Community Care, speaks during the dedication service for the new Alzheimer’s day center at Advent Lutheran in Boca Raton.
By Lucy Lazarony
There has been an Alzheimer’s day center at the heart of the Advent Lutheran community for more than 25 years.
“They are part of our community, and we love having them here,” says Pastor Andy Hagen of Advent Lutheran Church in Boca Raton. “For us it goes back to our relationship, our faith through Jesus, which is to help those in any need.”
Mary Barnes, who now is executive director of Alzheimer’s Community Care, first requested use of Advent Lutheran’s Fellowship Hall for a day center for Alzheimer’s patients in 1987.
The day center and its small staff would serve Alzheimer’s patients in the Fellowship Hall, which was the original sanctuary of Advent Lutheran, on weekdays.
“I thought this is a great idea,” remembers retired Pastor Ron Dingle. “We have a building that sits empty and we have people who could be volunteers … We had several members of our congregation who were aging at the time and ended up being clients.”
The warm relationship with Advent Lutheran and Barnes and Alzheimer’s Community Care, which formed in 1996, continues with the opening of a brand-new day center for Alzheimer’s patients on July 22 on the Advent Lutheran campus.
The new facility, a converted home, has two bathrooms with showers, a row of comfortable recliners, tables and chairs for dining and activities, a kitchen, an office, and a brick patio where patients can relax under mango trees.
With cream and pale green walls and almost a dozen windows, the center feels light and bright and cheery.
“It’s a very home-like setting,” Hagen says. “And for people with that condition, everything that you can do that is reassuring is good. And now they are being dropped off at a house!”
And Barnes says the day center on the Advent Lutheran campus has become a model for eight other dementia-specific day centers run by Alzheimer’s Community Care in Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties.
“There is no real medication that stops this disease. This is our medication that works because it stabilizes,” says Barnes, speaking at an open house and dedication service on Aug. 4. “It gives people the opportunity to be themselves. Here they can be themselves. Here they can develop new friendships. And here people understand.”
And they have a great deal of fun. There are games and music and activities throughout the day, a noontime meal and snacks and plenty of visitors.
Toddlers from Advent’s early childhood school perform songs for their “grandmas and grandpas.” They paint Easter eggs together, too.
“We color Easter eggs, an intergenerational Easter egg coloring, and then we eat them. Great fun!” says Denise Ceparano, who has worked at Advent’s early childhood school for 25 years.
“The ones I bring over are 2 going on 3. Some of them are 3,” Ceparano says. “We go to them. We sing them chapel songs. We have a fabulous interaction with them. Sometimes, we shake hands. We’ve gotten to know their faces. … Elementary and middle school students come over as well.”
And pastors and staff from Advent Lutheran are invited to the annual Thanksgiving dinner held at the day center for Alzheimer’s patients and their families.
“The church has always been invited because to us they are family as well,” says Denise Douglas, program manager for the day center since 1997. “We’re lucky to have that closeness with them.”
As for her patients at the day center and the family caregivers who love them, Douglas says: “You’re not in this alone anymore. We’ve got your back.”
Donna Drucker, director of Family Ministries, leads the children of Advent Lutheran Early Childhood School in song during a recent visit to the new Alzheimer’s day center.
Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Tim Pallesen’s Finding Faith column will return next month.
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