Meet the recipients of Maude’s Awards:
2025 Organization Awardees
2025 Individual Awardees
2025 Honorable Mention
Organization Awards
Dementia Support Northwest
Amy’s Place – Dementia Community Hub
Award Category: Making Connections
https://www.dementiasupportnw.org
Amy’s Place is the Dementia Community Hub in the Bellis Fair Mall, located in Bellingham, Washington. DSNW secured a 1-year $240,000 grant to help plan and launch the Hub. DSNW has a 3-phase process and is now in phase 2. We will continue offering services and add new services for unmet community needs. DSNW will be offering: Free short term respite care, a social hub/ Coffee Counter, Meeting space for Support Groups and Memory screening to name a few of the offerings.
Lorenzo’s House
Award Category: Supporting Care Partners
Lorenzo’s House is a non-profit, virtual organization offering free programming and empowerment to the sons and daughters and families affected by any form of younger-onset dementia (YOD), before the age of 65. This national and worldwide program heals in community and advocates for dementia justice. Our three-pillar programs are designed to educate, empower, and build community:
MATCH–curing isolation through caregiver-to-caregiver connection
CLUBS–building community in virtual hang outs
SUMMIT–driving dementia justice through our worldwide youth-led event
We are changing the way people think, experience, and respond to dementia, with youth as our compass. Since 2021, we have served more than 2200 family members, across 49 States and 15 countries. We connected more than 400 carers through MATCH, offered 350+ support CLUB sessions, and grew our youth-led SUMMIT from 20 to more than 200 daughters and sons of YOD.
Masonicare Corporation
Students in Residence & Community Engagement Legacy Class
Award Category: Making Connections
Masonicare currently offers intergenerational activities with two unique programs. The first is a Students in Residence (SIR) program that was initiated in 2016 on the Wallingford campus. Students from a local university reside amongst the residents for the academic year, providing recreation programming throughout the semesters. Recently, additional properties were acquired, two of which have memory care units. It is planned to open this program to those communities for the 25/26 academic year. Students from two other universities have already been selected to participate.
The other program that we partnered with Quinnipiac University and will be ongoing is the Community Engagement Legacy class. Students spend the semester with a dedicated resident, learning their stories and creating a book to provide to them and their family highlighting their life. This partnership began fall of 2024 and is continuing.
Individual Awards
Alexis Baker
Bridgetown Music Therapy
Award Category: Supporting Care Partners
Bridgetown Music Therapy offers a variety of services from in-person music therapy visits to online music programs, in addition to education/advocacy through writing, speaking, networking, content creating, collaborating, and resource sharing with the dementia care community. We focus on “Singing at Home” (SAH), our virtual music engagement program for individuals living at home. SAH focuses on active participation through the activities of singing, physical movement, deep breathing, relaxation, and instrument play. Outcomes focus on not only improving quality of life for persons living with dementia but also supporting care partners. SAH has a very holistic approach by impacting a person’s cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Benefits include but are not limited to improved mood, reduced anxiety, cognitive engagement, and increased connection to loved one/caregivers.
Joe Hausch
Photavia
Award Category: Making Connections
PHOTAVIA® creates all-inclusive media experiences via art – part video, part education – with a neuroscience focus. The premise is how positive personal memories, evoked by memory triggers, can benefit individuals with dementia and Alzheimer’s, and their families/care partners. The “A Moment in Time” (AMIT) series of 300+ V-clips have researched stories, large text with voice over, and original music beds. Viewing can reduce anxiety and stress, create reminiscence, ignite connection and conversation, and help mitigate isolation.
PhoTrivia transforms V-Clips into engaging group activities specifically addressing a need for structured group engagement activities that stimulate memory and conversation. PHOTAVIA, founded in 2015, has subscriptions ranging from $12.99/m to $24.95/m. Enterprise pricing varies by scale and delivery method.
Laurie Scherrer
Award Category: Making Connections
After a dementia diagnosis and losing my career, feelings of uselessness and discontent began pulling me into a deep hole of self-deprivation. After a period of grief and anger, I made a promise to God and myself to make the best of every day, to live to the fullest and make a difference in those newly diagnosed. Through Dementia Action Alliance, (DAA) I run 19 Virtual Programs free to participants. These weekly or monthly programs focus on enhancing lives, connecting people, providing support, and increasing understanding. Since 2018 I continuously monitor, add, and change to meet current trends and needs. Our current budget to run these programs is $20K. With additional funding we could accomplish so much more. Our programs offer opportunities for education, exercise, companionship, strategies, and advocacy. Our goal is to help participants find purpose either within DAA programs or new endeavors outside DAA. We believe that life with dementia can still be rich with meaning, and support individuals as they pursue new passions, and opportunities.”
Nancy Treaster
Award Category: Supporting Care Partners
“I am a care partner whose journey began nine years ago when my husband was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Prior to that, I had some experience caring for my father with Parkinson’s, but my husband’s diagnosis truly immersed me in dementia caregiving.
What inspires my work is the stark reality I faced: I was unprepared for dementia caregiving. I struggled to find practical, specific guidance for day-to-day challenges. I came to believe that dementia family caregivers want and need to hear from others who have “lived it”.
The Caregiver’s Journey is a nonprofit resource for dementia family caregivers that I co-founded with Sue Ryan in August 2024 – the heart of which is our awarding winning podcast. Our aim is to provide support and guidance to dementia family caregivers by sharing answers to the questions they do not know to ask and support we wish we’d had.”
Honorable Mention
Dementia Spring
Award Category: Making Connections
Dementia Spring’s dual mission is to empower and to scale independent, grass-roots arts programs and artists to (a) inspire joy and creativity in persons living with dementia and their care partners, and (b) challenge the pervasive stereotypes of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in the modern age. Our values are centered around creativity, partnership, and diversity. Founded in 2020, Dementia Spring provides funding, expertise, and technical support to artists and art therapists to perfect their work and scale broadly into the dementia community. We do this via online publications, Fellowship grants for artists and art therapists, and in-person performances.
Prairie Elder Care
Award Category: Cultivating Health
https://www.prairieeldercare.com
Prairie Connect is a program that takes place on the Prairie Connect Care farm. This beautiful and therapeutic location allows clients to “work” on the farmstead with a job friend. Activities include but not limited to preparing the organic care garden each Spring, planting, maintaining the garden, pulling crops, working with the therapeutic farm animals, and making connections with the residents who live on the farmstead, the job friends, and other participants in the program. The program is multi-sensory in that we incorporate music, art, nature, and other sensory experiences. In addition to the clients, the program offers much needed respite for the caregivers.
