engAGE Beverly

The path to opening

The model is being built thoughtfully through dedicated learning, formal training, and patient construction. Here is the shape of the next twelve months.

• NowSpring 2026
  Learning alongside Dick. Each week this month, I've had the opportunity to spend time with Dick. We've planted, read, worked on puzzles, made art, and hung out with a robot cat he has come to love. He's started learning piano, and we talk about the books he treasures (and the treasures we find saved within the pages!). There is no formal schedule and no curriculum; the point is to be with him and to begin to learn what works and what doesn't. Much of what I am carrying into our evolving model is coming from this time with Dick (with understanding that each individual with or without memory challenges is unique) in connection with what I'm learning from books, partnerships, and research.
• Summer2026
  Seattle, curriculum, and partnerships. The summer is shaped around three concentrated workstreams. First, a Seattle learning trip in July (the week of the 6th) thanks to Shanta Sabersky of Elderwise, with a full schedule of site visits, training, and meetings she has built across Elderwise, the University of Washington Memory Hub, and partner organizations doing dementia-inclusive work. Second, building out the Café curricula in earnest, beginning with the first series this fall. Third, deepening relationships with local partners and community spaces.
• Fall2026
  Literary & Music Cafés open. We are aiming to launch the first Café series in late August or September. Beth has suggested the Sanctuary at Beverly Unitarian Church as a possible host space, and the location and feel would be ideal. 2.5-hour sessions, twice a week, designed so intellectual dignity is fully preserved through purposeful, differentiated content that evokes the senses, invites memory, and creates appreciation of the present moment. The first series will pair a single book with a single musical tradition over four weeks: either The Hobbit paired with Folk (Peter, Paul and Mary; John Denver; Joni Mitchell; Simon & Garfunkel), or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn paired with American Roots and Irish Folk Music. We aim for up to 7 additional participants joining Dick to build the founding community. The sessions offer gathering, engagement, and meaningful experience for our members and brief, dependable respite for caregivers. Important: participants must be fully capable of managing their own Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), or be accompanied by a caregiver who can. Our role is to facilitate a meaningful 2.5-hour session, not to provide personal or medical care; that boundary is part of how the model stays safe and sustainable.
• Winter2026–27
  Café series continues; deeper training. The Literary and Music Cafés continue, with potential to add additional sessions drawing on the Elderwise and TimeSlips approaches, both of which I am pursuing formal training in.
• Spring2027
  A permanent home. With a year of learning, training, and community-building under us, we begin the search for a permanent space to host full-day programming and care.

Three filings done

• NFP 110.30 amendment — approval letter received from IL SOS.
• IRS Form 1023 — submitted May 5. 501(c)(3) determination expected late fall 2026.
• IL AG charitable registration — CO-1, CO-2, and supporting documents mailed May 6.

What this unlocks: once 501(c)(3) is confirmed and the IL AG registration is on file, we can formally solicit donations and apply for the grants currently sitting in the pipeline. Until then, we wait.

How we will gather this fall

The Café Model is the framework that holds the Literary and Music Cafés. Each Café is built around a five-block arc and offers three doorways into participation so that a person who wants to listen, a person who wants to talk, and a person who wants to make something all find their place in the same room.

A worked example: The Hobbit

To make the model concrete, here is how the Literary Café will spend four weeks with one book this fall. The Hobbit is being prepared first; other titles will be developed on the same template so each month has a clear shape before it begins.

• Week 1 — Home. We open in the Shire. A welcome toast, a poem about home, a passage read aloud, time with familiar sensory anchors (pipe tobacco, bread, garden herbs), and a workshop where participants write or make something about a home they remember.
• Week 2 — The Journey. Bilbo leaves the Shire. We read an excerpt, share food appropriate to the road, and work with maps and the sense of setting out.
• Week 3 — Hospitality. Beorn's house, elven feasts, the welcome of strangers. The Workshop centers on what it means to receive and to be received, with food at the heart of the session.
• Week 4 — Returning Changed. Bilbo comes home, but he is not the person who left. We return to objects and themes from the earlier weeks, share a closing meal, and reflect together on what changes and what stays.

Every session follows the same 2.5-hour rhythm: welcome toast, poem, discussion, excerpt, sensory anchor, workshop, gentle movement, shared café meal, and closing reflection. The Music Café follows the same shape, organized around one genre each month and one featured artist each week.

Full framework and one-pager are written and available if you'd like to see them.

At a standstill and on purpose

This month

• Café curricula — first four-week series in active build, pairing a single book with a single musical tradition. Choosing between The Hobbit with Folk and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with American Roots and Irish Folk for the inaugural cohort.
• Beverly Unitarian Church Sanctuary — at Beth's suggestion, exploring the Sanctuary as the host space for the first Café series. The setting and feel would be ideal; conversation is early and nothing committed on either side.
• Stakeholder meetings — Shanta Sabersky (Elderwise); Hartwell Place site visit; House of Welcome site visit; outreach to City of Chicago Area Agency on Aging, Association of Illinois Senior Centers, Christian Potra (Senior Care by Design), Vista Care, and REM Heritage.
• Principles Library — research synthesis deck built across six sources (Elderwise, Lancet Commission/After the Diagnosis, Six Dimensions of Wellness, Marquardt et al., Basting, Potra et al.). Foundation for future staff training.
• Blog — four research posts now live at engagebeverly.com/new-blog.
• Learning — every week with Dick. This continues to be the most important work.

The inspiration for the EngAGE Cafés

I met by Zoom with Shanta Sabersky, founder and former executive director of Elderwise in Seattle, a small day community for adults with memory changes. Elderwise has shaped much of how I have imagined this work and the conversation moved several pieces forward.

Three things to flag for the board:

• A clear boundary. Elderwise welcomes participants until they require one-to-one attention, at which point the model gently asks them to move on. The clarity of that boundary is what protects the experience for everyone else in the room. For our Café sessions this fall, this directly informs the ADL requirement noted in the timeline and the role we are taking on as session facilitators rather than care providers.
• A booked visit to Seattle. Shanta has built me a full schedule of learning and connecting for a July trip, including time inside Elderwise, meetings with University of Washington Memory Hub contacts, and introductions to partner organizations doing dementia-inclusive programming. This will be the single most concentrated training and observation opportunity available to me before the first Café series launches.
• A possible collaboration. She raised the idea of co-developing a replicable facilitator certification curriculum, something Elderwise has considered for years and never built. My adult learning and curriculum design background may be the right match. Worth exploring with no commitment yet.

Next month

• June — Continued weekly time with Dick; final selection of the first Café series text; continued conversation with Beverly Unitarian Church.
• July — Seattle learning trip: Elderwise, UW Memory Hub, partner organizations.
• Awaiting — IL AG registration confirmation; IRS 1023 acknowledgment.
• Late summer / early fall 2026 — First Literary & Music Café series launches.