2015 Summary

With generous support from the Pabst Charitable Foundation for the Arts as a lead funder, the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP), held 233 sessions, in 2015, to help realize our vision of improving the quality of life of people living with memory loss by accessing their creativity through the performance and creation of poetry. Led by APP founder Gary Glazner and 4 teaching artists, we served 5,366 people in nine states. New initiatives included, a pilot-project at Fishkill Correctional Facility in up-state New York, to work with the Unit for the Cognitively Impaired, at one
of the only prisons in the U.S. to have a unit for men living with memory loss. This led to working with elder prisoners at Long Bay Gaol in Sydney, Australia. We are also proud of the work we did training Senior Center Supervisors in partnership with the Navajo Nation Area Agency on Aging,
in rural New Mexico to create poems, songs and stories with their elders. These sessions took place in English and Navajo. In our Community-in-Residence project in Santa Fe, New Mexico, we partnered with leading cultural organizations including the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, New Mexico History Museum and Santa Fe Opera to build community around creativity with people living with memory loss, their families and healthcare professionals. Poetry for Life, engaged students in a service learning, to teach them to perform and create poetry with people living with memory loss, in five states in conjunction with the respective State Arts Agencies. Of note is our partnership with the Mississippi Arts Commission to bring the project to six rural communities. Cody Tulip, of Durand High School, wrote of his experience, “This has shown me the power poetry has
over Alzheimer’s.”