Meet the recipients of Maude’s Awards:
2026 Organization Awardees
2026 Individual Awardees
2026 Honorable Mention
Organization Awards
Alzheimer’s Poetry Project
Award Category: Making Connections
The mission of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP) is to enrich the quality of life for persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and their care partners. We perform and create poems, stories, songs and use humor, improvisation and movement. Participatory arts, the concept of performing and creating together is at our core of the APP methods.
Our signature feature is call and
response, in which the workshop leader calls out a line (“Once upon a midnight dreary”) and the group echoes or repeats it. Over the past
twenty years we have successfully taught our methods to care partners, healthcare workers, educators, and students of all ages, from preschool to medical school, in 36 states and internationally in ten countries. Our published research in peer-reviewed journals such as “Arts and Health, shows that asking participants to join voices in repeating a line of poetry helps to shed some measure of isolation.
More info at alzpoetry.com.
Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council
Award Category: Supporting Care Partners
The Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Epidemiology Center (GLITEC), a program of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council (GLITC), offers the Together Strong Brain Health Program, which works with Tribal communities across Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to strengthen dementia awareness, caregiver support, risk reduction, and culturally responsive systems of care. The program centers Indigenous knowledge, community priorities, and evidence-informed public health strategies to promote lifelong brain health and improve support for people living with dementia and their caregivers. Amber Hoon, Tribal Dementia Program Director and a Licensed Practical Nurse with extensive dementia-care experience, leads the program’s development, partnerships, training, and outreach. Her work is grounded in respect for Tribal sovereignty and a commitment to building sustainable, dementia-capable Tribal communities.
Respite for All Foundation
Award Category: Supporting Care Partners
The Respite for All Foundation (RFA) is a national leader in replicating a proven model of sustainable, non-medical, volunteer-staffed, four-hour respite that serves families living with dementia. Drawing on the success of a respite program launched by Daphne Johnston and her church in 2012 in Montgomery, AL, Johnston founded the nonprofit in 2019 to share the vision, business model, and best practices of dementia-focused respite with other communities. Today, Respite for All has helped nearly 80 local teams establish respite programs in 20 states, with more in progress. By de-medicalizing dementia support, RFA is helping expand opportunities for affordable, accessible support for family caregivers and meaningful social engagement for people living with dementia.
Individual Awards
Elisa Bosley
Spiritual Eldercare
Award Category: Supporting Care Partners
Although research highlights the importance of spiritual care for elders with dementia, practical tools to provide that care have been hard to find. As a nondenominational chaplain, Elisa Bosley creates original, dementia-friendly print, audio, and video resources to support spiritual health for loved ones with dementia and their care partners. Her free online materials include 100+ sing-along classic hymns and spirituals, more than a year’s worth of welcoming church service agendas, dozens of scripture discussion guides, and hundreds of accompanying videos, all designed to engage elders with dementia and to equip activity professionals, care partners, volunteers, and family members to provide this much-needed care. Resources reach people worldwide via SpiritualEldercare.com and YouTube.com/spiritualeldercare.
Diana & Sandra Gonzalez-Morett
Go-Mo Creatives
Award Category: Making Connections
Go-Mo Creatives is a sister-led creative company founded by caregivers Diana & Sandra Gonzalez-Morett to reduce dementia stigma through the arts. Their Pets of FTD Awareness Calendar celebrates the furry caregivers who bring comfort and joy to people diagnosed with Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) and their families, using our universal love of pets to open conversations about brain change, caregiving, genetics, and research. Participants share their stories and nominate their furry heroes for a community-wide vote, with the top 12 featured in original portraits by artist, caregiver, and FTD advocate Alyssa Nash; lead sponsor The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) provides trusted resources shared throughout the calendar. Through joy, art, and community, Pets of FTD makes a misunderstood disease more approachable, helps people feel seen and connected, and turns the love of pets into a powerful tool for awareness.
Nikki Jardin
Mirador Magazine
Award Category: Making Connections
MIRADOR is an ad-free magazine celebrating the curiosity, life experience, and connection of people living with dementia. We champion reading accessibility through large print, an uncluttered layout, positive content, and activities designed to be enjoyed independently or together. Published by Nikki Jardin, MIRADOR grew from her search for an accessible, engaging magazine for her aunt, who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. At its heart, MIRADOR challenges the idea that a diagnosis should limit a person’s access to meaningful ideas, information, and the pleasure of reading.
Karen Xin
Award Category: Making Connection
A care partner to her husband living with Alzheimer’s disease, Karen Xin co-founded Memory Garden, a Chinese-language dementia social engagement program of Touchstone Alliance, with a deeply personal belief: a dementia diagnosis does not end a person’s capacity to bring joy, meaning, and purpose to the world. Together with her team, Karen brings this belief to life by creating opportunities for participants to share their stories, perform for community audiences, and volunteer alongside family members and neighbors. Memory Garden’s innovation lies in placing meaningful contribution at the heart of dementia support—helping each person experience their own worth and giving the wider community opportunities to recognize and celebrate it. Rooted in familiar language and culture, the program nurtures belonging, challenges stigma, and shows that life with dementia can still hold purpose, connection, and moments to shine.
Honorable Mention
The Arc Jacksonville
Award Category: Cultivating Health
The Arc Jacksonville’s Specialized Aging Support (SAS) program provides specialized services for individuals with intellectual and developmental differences who are at risk or showing signs of Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementia. A key component of SAS is promoting overall wellness through activities that support physical health, cognitive engagement, social connection, and emotional well-being. Participants engage in opportunities such as exercise, nutrition education, brain-health activities, recreation, and meaningful social experiences designed to encourage healthy aging. The program helps individuals build healthy habits that can support their quality of life as they age.
Lincoln Park Zoo
Award Category: Making Connections
In 2023, Lincoln Park Zoo launched Memory Enrichment, a first-of-its-kind, free program that uses nature and wildlife to enhance the lives of those living with dementia and their care partners through social connection, reminiscence, and connection to nature. Implementing evidence-based methods from Memory Cafes, the zoo’s program combines social learning activities with the proven health benefits of time spent in nature and with wildlife. As the only zoo-based program of its kind, Memory Enrichment is a model for how zoos, botanic gardens, and other natural spaces can better serve people with dementia and care partners, and it has already attracted interest from peer institutions seeking to replicate this work. Memory Enrichment is part of Lincoln Park Zoo’s innovative and award-winning Accessibility programs, led by Bill Green, Hart Prins Fund Manager of Accessibility and Inclusion.