 Next up on Big Talk from Small Libraries is our memory cafes. Erin Crockett is the director of the Carroll County Library. Good morning Erin. Good morning Erin. Good morning Erin. And Huntingdon, Tennessee, whose population served is, last I have here, 4,433. So that's in Huntingdon. We are a county library, so we serve more than that, but we're really spread out and really rural, so. It's a big county. It's a very big county with a lot of little towns in it, so. Awesome. All right. So, and this is a really fun thing that I saw very useful, I think, especially with populations, as they do. And she's going to tell us about the memory cafes that they've done in their library. So please tell us all about that, Erin. Thank you. We've actually only been doing the memory cafes for a little less than a year now. We got it through. We were able to purchase materials through. It was the Arsill Penguin Random House grant from last year. Oh, yes. Yeah. So, I saw that grant pop up and I was trying to look at different areas that our library wasn't quite meeting in our community and one of them was like adult senior programming because we do a lot of kids programs, which, which I love. But we adults and seniors, I don't feel like get that many programs that they get to do so memory cafe was one that really intrigued me because there's a lot of, you know, dementia Alzheimer's in our communities. So memory cafe is, it's something that create a safe and comfortable space where memory loss patients and their caregivers can interact with others in the community facing similar challenges. It's an opportunity for everyone to connect without stress pressure or expectations we don't. We don't charge for anything. People can just come and talk and and share similar share similar situations that are going on and just kind of feel connected that way. It's also a place for community members with those memory challenges can come together and socialize and engage in activities without concerns expenses or judgments. It's also a place for caregivers and memory loss patients to hopefully feel more normal and get to go to an event together, because there's not a lot of places that that welcome, you know, that you can go that they don't have to pay for anything that they can talk with each other and things like that. And then see one of the things I would did want to say is like what a memory cafe is not because we did have that question happen or we had a question that came up several times when we started offering the memory cafe is not respite care or drop off service. We've had to repeatedly tell people that it's not is for the caregiver and the memory loss patient to enjoy together it's not for them to drop them off and come pick them back up. And then why should you host one. Let's see, I saw that there was a need for memory cafe for more adult senior specific programming in our community. And then the memory cafe intrigued me the most and seemed the most doable for we have a small staff we have three full time employees in one part time, which we just got her recently. And we were also a say, we were able to receive the grant to purchase those materials but I'm also going to go over materials that I felt like if you wanted to host one that you would need, as opposed to ones that are not necessarily that important and probably some of the more pricey items that we purchased. So after articles that I've read, I discovered that engaging. Engaging a member cafes and conversing with individuals with individuals with similar interest can promote a mental stimulation. These spaces offer supportive and welcoming environment to exchange experiences on coping with their circumstances, particularly in the beginning phases of dementia Alzheimer's memory loss. Caregivers and their loved ones have the chance to engage in activities and socialize together creating opportunities. Opportunities for shared enjoyment. They can provide comfort and alleviate the feelings of loneliness and social isolation for those caregivers and the person they are caring for my experience due to their circumstances. So it's just kind of it's a way for them to not be in that it's a difficult situation for anybody to deal with all of that anyways. So it's just a way for them to have somebody to talk to not feel as lonely realize that they're they're not alone in what they're going through. These are just some things as we've navigated through the memory cafe that we've learned over the past several months and being flexible with your time and plans said you can't be on a schedule with this particular program. It's very much go with the flow. We've had people who come in super early wanting ready to do memory cafe and then we've had other days where it was harder to get out the door they were very late. So we've we've kind of gotten to where we'll set up everything and then we'll kind of just like wait around a little bit and just kind of see if anybody is going to show up and then you know give them a few extra minutes because navigating with the memory loss and everything is a little difficult. So we have had a few memory cafes go a little longer than anticipated and then we've had some where they've come drawn a picture and then wanted to leave immediately so it could be it could be any length. And then like our Christmas once we had it in the library and I had activities and we had like Christmas themed like gingerbread cookies like the soft ones and things like that. And nobody showed up at the time that it was starting so we kept it we kept it out for a little bit longer to see if anybody eventually showed up. We ended up keeping out the whole day. Some of the group homes that come to the library ended up coming in with their some of their older adults and some of their special needs adults and they were able to participate. The whole day basically they could kind of come in and out as they needed to and they were able to do and we made scented play dough that had like sensory beads and it was a lot of fun. And then you also have to be flexible with your expectations. It's like I said sometimes people will be excited to show up and they'll be there and then other times people will still be excited that you're putting this on and will be excited for the opportunity and then you'll have nobody show up which you've had to have been quite a few times. We've also noticed that I'm depending on the weather. It people if it's raining and it's cold outside you're probably not going to have people show up and you can't control the weather. And then the other thing we've learned is just to keep going. Even if you have those days where no one comes. Stay the course. We've had two memory cafes in a row where no one showed up but we were able to use that time to think of ways to adapt our plan and providing the service to our community. And this is times that we've we work with our office on aging and the director over on the office on aging, talk to us about different areas like different places we could talk to to see if they'd be interested in having us host one there eventually. And things like that so it's it's it's sometimes it's hard when nobody shows up and you kind of want to quit but you just keep going. Eventually you'll get a good base of people who are coming consistently because they look forward to it every month. And then look for multiple uses through conversations with library patrons and community members we have found that specific that this specific program can also benefit our group homes for special needs adults. We appreciate having a special reason to visit the library what we've told them if they'll give us like even a five minute heads up that they're coming to the library we can take all of the things from the memory cafe and set it out so they have something to do when they come, because most of them want to color or we have like the puzzles and things like that that they love to do. So we advise collaborating with local entities. We collaborate with our office on aging. And a lot of communities have senior centers or even the nursing homes have been a big help in like trying to figure out exactly what those patrons would want from a memory cafe. And they can also have to get the word out so that's, that's, they can advertise for you and like let people know that this is going on that way, more community members can benefit from it. And then we're also in for multiple uses. Since we are such a small staff it's hard to do outreach, but we are looking at dates and times that we can work with nursing homes to have two of us at the library, take this over to a nursing home, and to be able to provide this as an opportunity for them. Let's see. So, and this is this is a point I didn't think I was going to have to make but be conscious of your attire. I highly advise to wear something comfortable that you don't mind getting messes on because they you don't know what you're going to be doing with your patrons, and then something that covers as well. My very first memory cafe I wore just a blouse just a regular blouse. One of the patrons filter was not quite working. And we had a uncomfortable situation between the two of us that we had to kind of navigate through. So I would just advise like anything high neck, I would wear pants, if at all possible so that way you can get up get down and be comfortable. That was not something I really thought about when we started memory cafe but definitely need to look at what you're wearing and be kind of conscious of all that. And the last one is on this one of the things we learned was definitely listen to your patrons I think that's with any programming you do at the library. But our other conversations that we've had with those libraries is we've learned so many things just because of things they've said. So when we started the memory cafe we actually weren't offering snacks because we didn't think about it we thought it was more about the, the programming like the coming in and doing an art project together and like doing things like that. And we actually had somebody she was like, it's called a cafe, why don't you have any food. And we're like that, that makes sense we didn't think about it before. So, yes, we've learned that if you call something at cafe people expect you to have food and drinks available for them. It's also where we learned one of the you actually see her in this picture in the background her husband is to the left of her that she takes care of. And we learned that sugary drinks like we were like talking about drink bring and punch and sweet tea and things like that. She, she told us that water bottles were the best thing to give people with memory loss and dementia or memory loss dimension all timers. Because the sugary drinks, not only most of the people who come have diabetes and high sugary drinks are just, you know, not good for diabetes, but also people with dimension all timers, their swallowing reflex is not as great. Those sugary drinks are a little bit thicker than water. So it's a little harder for those people dealing with memory loss to swallow and we didn't know that till she told us that she was like if you do offer drinks she's like I would only do water because you don't want somebody accidentally choking because the drinks you're offering are a little too thick for them and I was like okay. And then we've also communication with our community members has shown where we need to improve and what was not needed, which has been the best resource for us so people have come in and told us different things. And I was like, I would really like it feel offered this during this program or I didn't really like this so it's we kind of it's been a learning process for us. And then I'm going to go on to materials we purchased. So there's like essential items that I think like if you're going to have a memory cafe these are things you need to have to have a successful one. Definitely, I think I've mentioned the snacks, definitely sneeze snacks. And then half the time as people come just for the snacks. We have brought or we have. So sorry, we have nostalgic snacks snacks I cannot talk for our patrons. So, like for Tennessee, moon pies are a big thing here and so our oatmeal cream pies that's like people who grew up here from their childhood. And those are also nice soft cookie. So options, which kind of goes along with the water something easier for them to chew I wouldn't do hard candy, and I wouldn't do cookies like really crunchy cookies and do something soft. And like a little bit sweet that they can enjoy. And then the water is also so we tend to do those two and like during Christmas we had the gingerbread cookies but they were the soft gingerbread cookies. We also, I highly recommend polyester table claws. Because they are stain resistant, they, they do not wrinkle, and they're easy to clean. And then they also come in a different array of like patterns, things like that. So we're looking at adding more patterns of those specific type of table costs so that way, each memory cafe, we can have like a theme to it. And that way the table costs can kind of match the thing because they, they definitely it definitely brightens up the space if you have those table costs and it looks more like an event that somebody had to set up for them as opposed to just come into the library to come and like paint something. Another one that I think you must have is therapy putty that is probably our most used item I set that out and people will go straight to that. It's good for a hand muscle workout, and it's also like stress relieving and like, as I will find myself grabbing one of them with one of the other patrons and just like folding it in my hands as I'm talking to them and it's kind of like relieves your stress. All right, and then also puzzles definitely would recommend puzzles. The first the first memory cafe we had we had about four puzzles out. And I had people waiting on people to get done with the puzzles to also do one of the puzzles so we've, we've increased our puzzle collection since then, and then also make sure you have plenty of options we started out with just big pieces. They were puzzles that were specifically like advertised for people with dimension Alzheimer's so they had like really pretty backgrounds, but it was only like 16 pieces. And then we we so we had a patron who got offended that I only had 16 piece puzzles. She came up to me she said my mind isn't that far gone I can do a normal puzzle and I was like okay. So we, we have recently bought a little more challenging I mean they're there about an hour so you don't need anything like you don't need like 1000 puzzle piece, unless they just want to continue to work on it. But if they want to get it done in that time we have found these, these other puzzles that are not the 16 piece with like the huge pieces, but that are a little bit smaller and they also love these ones that they come in their own box. And the box they come in it has the picture at the top and at the bottom of the box. It's exactly the same size as the puzzle so they can use that to put the puzzles along the edge of the box and it keeps it from sliding and it kind of helps keep it a little more organized as well. I highly recommend having craft supplies. We have a lot of patients who love coming, doing watercolors. We have like watercolor pages and then we have un-tippable paint cuts you can find those in Amazon, but they have like a large base and then they kind of go skinnier towards the top so it's almost impossible to knock those over especially after you get water in them, which is wonderful because I feel like I see those things get kind of knocked around all the time. So and then on top of like watercolors and the un-tippable paint cups and well obviously paint brushes. We also were looking at, we've been talking with a local art teacher to come in and do a like, we've got small canvases and paint brushes and acrylic paint, but kind of showing them how to like paint a flower or something like that. That's kind of like a lead program with like a person, like an artist that's local. In finding anybody that can come in and offer any kind of like extra programming like that is great as well. And then we have the watercolor pages and then we've found out that you can print stuff on the watercolor pages like print designs and our patrons really, really love when we do that because they want to do the watercolor, but they're like, I don't know what to design like they don't, they're like have an idea of what I might want to design, but I'm not completely sure. So what we've taken from that is if you have something specific that they're designing or like a pre-done outline to do their watercolors in, it takes a lot off their mind for some reason for them just to paint inside the lines. And then we always have some type of music going on. I was like, I personally love music, but we have a Spotify account or I have personally have a Spotify account and we listen to this one playlist that it's a dementia playlist and it plays like old nostalgic songs and it's very soft and calming. And there's, I bet you there's a ton of playlists out there that have just dementia specific playlists that people can listen to. And you want to make sure it's like nice calming music, nostalgic music helps a lot. We had some that I mean we had like Beatles, Aretha Franklin and that kind of thing and they just loved it. And they also liked it that I knew who those were and they were able to be able to talk about those things together. And then I'm going to go on to the nice things to have they're not essential I don't think, but they are really nice, the wooden easels are really nice to put the small canvases on. We've used them a couple times, but in the past like year as like we've only used them a couple times. So they're not completely essential. The plastic base and the fake flowers are also really nice to have but again, not essential. It just, it just kind of elevates the look of the whole memory cafe where it looks like they've gone to an actual like cafe to go do this event and it just, it looks nice. We've also gotten these sensory blankets and it's, it's really soft on one side when you open it up. It's almost like a fidget blanket. It's got like little beads that you can run across a braid you can braid and then all these different fidgety type things that they can just in it. It's meant to like go over the patron's lap, and they can kind of play with it in their lap they don't have to have it on the table or anything they can have it in their wheelchair on their lap. And we've, we have not used those a ton. This is a really good idea. I think for if once we are able to do outreach and go to nursing homes, I think that will be a really good place for those. And then, and not necessary but the caregivers are really love the books on dimension all the time and it's kind of like it has, we've gotten one that's on the Montessori method for, for kind of navigating your, your, your loved one who's dealing with dimension Alzheimer's. And then we've got a few other ones that just have information on dimension Alzheimer's which they really appreciate. And then we've also got for the patient who's dealing with dementia Alzheimer's and memory loss. There are these picture books and like we have one that's like a happy baby book and it's just a giant book of pictures with happy babies. And we've got one that because in our specific community there's a lot of church going members so it has hymns from church but it also has like a beautiful landscape behind it. And it also has we have another one that's just, it's just a flower gardens and it's beautiful and they just love looking through it snicks and happy. Let's see and then the do not purchase these are things that we did purchase with our grant and everything. That we have not used about flameless candles thinking that it was kind of like set a nice mood and be very calming, not thinking about that most of these will be held during the day during light hours so flameless candles are not necessary. We have used them for other events, but for this specific event, you don't need any kind of candles or any kind of special lighting or anything because if you do it during the day. Unless you're like in a dark room, or like a room that doesn't have windows, you're gonna, I mean you're gonna have that natural sunlight and they prefer that anyways. And again just don't do sugary drinks. We, the, the lady who who told me about that was just like she was like, she's like I wouldn't even attempt sugary drinks at all. And we also purchased a cart from Amazon that was to carry all of the stuff to and from if we like needed to like carry it out of our work room to the event. And we got we just got one that we're like it won't be that heavy we won't need that much stuff. I would just advise putting everything in organized in a box or something like that that you can carry with you, because our carts about falling apart it's only been a year so. And then also you don't need what you didn't purchase the staff but we only have one staff member who goes through this with us. So when I'm not here because I'm usually the one who leads the memory cafes, my assistant director will lead the memory cafes for me. And she she does a great job and she also is really good at communicating like things that were said and things like that. But you really only need one staff member for the memory cafe so that that's one good thing about it is if you have one person who can kind of be hands on and talk with patrons and things like that and you're good to go. And I think that is it. Yes. Okay, so is anybody have any questions about memory cafe or anything like that. Thank you so much Aaron. Yes, we do have some a couple of questions came in if anyone does have any questions type into the questions section of your go to webinar interface. I am monitoring that here you go ahead and keep your slides up keep that slide full screen there. And everything. Yeah, sorry. Okay. And yes, we have that up and available. All right. Yes, so anybody have any questions, comments, thoughts or anything if anyone done this at your library. We would love to hear about it. Definitely. So, as I said in the beginning I thought this was a really, because with the way population is aging this is definitely something I think a lot of libraries are going to getting more into. Okay. There's one comment and I'm sorry it was about five minutes ago so I don't remember exactly what they were referring to because I was doing other behind the scenes things. Someone says you can use bigger book easels for holding up, maybe paintings or something. I don't know. Okay. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's talking about wooden easels so maybe she's talking about using like the bookies instead of having to purchase the suggestion something you already have an idea. Yeah. Yeah. All right so someone wants to know where do you get your puzzles. We've gotten most of them through Amazon. There's I actually once once the sessions over I'm sharing I have a whole it's like a little tiny pamphlet with all of the different things we purchase like it each individual item we've purchased. But most of them have come from Amazon. We've had a couple of patrons donate a few. I was sort of some libraries having puzzles donated to them people do do that you know are they asked for is anybody have any. Yeah so that is a way to possibly do as well. But if you have an Amazon account definitely go for the Amazon. So your second question, did you and your staff receive any training on working with people with memory loss, any special training. We did not. I growing up with my grandparents and then my husband's grandparents aging I've just as like I personally have just kind of dealt with an older population so I, and especially down south the yes ma'am no ma'am. Yes or no sir like manners and, and things like that come naturally I think to most of us because most of us kind of deal with like an are our older population, but we have not received any training. Not not any formal training there's just been a lot of with my staff I've shared all the information I've learned through the research I did to get the grant. So we have a couple of questions about motion. Where did you promote to reach the community that this serves. And what's the best way you have promoted your memory program my library service area does not have an assisted living assisted assisted living facility or care facilities we might struggle getting the word out to our target. Yeah so how did you promote yeah. So we, I mean we do social media which that's, I don't know if that actually reaches anybody who uses the memory cafe, but we've done a lot of word of mouth. Like we've in other social situations like I go to the coffee shop every morning so I would talk about it there and then our office on aging. We don't have one but that's a really good resource because they, they keep up with all the events for seniors. So they just added us to our calendar. We've also contacted our local paper, especially when we had our first one. And then we've personally called all the nursing homes in our area to let them know that that was going on, so that they could also they could. And so we had one nursing home bring over some patrons, they'd like brought them over on a trip. And then we had a couple other that just told their, like had it advertised to their loved ones in the nursing homes and be like hey if you wanted to get them out for the day. You could bring them here and do this thing at the library. All right, great. Could you find a good is you said you can have some additional resources, but could you provide a book list. I love the ideas and appreciate you're presenting this material. Yes. That's actually that's I, I'm going to be sending this to everybody. This is what I had I presented it at our soul and the arsenal conference in Wichita. This is what I gave everybody and I'll be sharing it. But so one of the, the Alzheimer books for the caregivers was the Montessori method for connecting people with dementia. The author's last name is Brenner. There's another one called dementia arts. And I think the, the author's last names were glasner and Gary. And then there's the last one we got was you say goodbye and we say hello the Montessori method for positive dementia care. Yeah, if you send me that document I'll include it when I put up the recording. Okay. And also the slides will be available as well afterwards you can send me the link to your slides in that document and when the archive goes up I'll put links to you'll have the video of the recording and then both the documents will be attached. Yeah. Do you have any memory kits, someone wants to know. No, I did look. The memory kits, they are very expensive though, and I don't. We ended up just kind of doing like a DIY. Getting some of the materials from like a D or a front that you would get in a memory kit. So it's just, especially because like with how much the grant gave us we'd rather have more to like, we bought more in bulk like the craft supplies so that this could last a long time as opposed to spending more money on like memory kits and things like that. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's a good thing to mention that you know those those are those are expensive and for some small rural libraries don't have the funds for it. You can put together something yourself maybe take a look at those and what's in them and then own cheaper version. Yes, yes, yes, because definitely I was like I don't think any of us have enough money to spend on anything like that it'd be lovely but yeah. Now here's a different comment from a different point of view. If your senior center is already doing this how would you recommend supporting them. I was like, if they were already doing it. Because we try to collaborate with ours a lot on different things. Seeing if you could come provide, like if you have books on dementia Alzheimer's and stuff like that seeing if you could come and provide books maybe, or like come provides like collaborate with them is like hey the library is bringing snacks this time or something like that just to like support if they're willing to let you do that. Senior Center and say what kind of things are you doing that the library could help with like if you do want to connect with those people you might not be a memory cafe because they're already running that but there could definitely be other things that you could help them with. Yes, that would be great to you. Definitely asking them what they need they probably be better than just assuming what they need. Okay. Okay. Got lots of great questions coming in we got plenty of time here to answer all your questions to. Thank you for. I love this thank you for sharing your experience with it. Do you find patrons participating in this program get agitated any more than any other type of patrons. If the staff member running it has to go help a patron visiting the library for something else like they get called away if this is for people with very short staff program but then is like oh wait I've got to go check out this book I've got to someone I've got to go into the phone is that an issue or how have you dealt with that. So I think we're very lucky in that like we have that time we only have it once a month, but we have that time carved out so the person who's running the memory cafe. We have somebody else here to run the library. We don't have to worry about having to run away and as I feel like, but we've had the instance where like there's only one of you and there's several people. And they all kind of like have there's like there's been instances where like one person's wanting attention, but then another person needs help with something and that kind of thing. I haven't had anybody get angry at us over it. We may have just been lucky in that or are blessed in that. But it seems like they're all pretty understanding but I don't think we've also we haven't dealt with like the the far end of like dimension where they're like, they've been dealing with it for a long time and their patients is a little thinner and things like that too so I haven't had anybody get angry. They've just been, it's been honestly a lot have been grateful for the opportunity because we are such a small rural area. All right, next up we have what a great idea and activity how long do they usually stay how long are the. So, we pose it that it's an hour long so they usually stay about an hour but we have had instances I think I talked about it, and where they came, they came in the color to sheet and they're like, okay, I'm done and they were there for maybe 15 minutes. So, it kind of just we we say that it's an hour long and then if it goes a little bit over where we kind of, you know, we're like that's okay if it's a little bit over. It's kind of like why it's good to have it like we have ours at 10. Oh, that was another thing I should have talked about time and I wouldn't do it super early in the morning. But I wouldn't do it in the afternoon either. The lady who like was talking about the sugar drinks and all of that stuff. She has been a really great help because she's she's dealing with it right now. She like 1030 am is like perfect time for us, people because it allows them to wake up kind of like get their facilities together a little bit enough to get out the door. And then by the time we're done it's about lunchtime and then it's a good time for them to go home do lunch and because afternoons they said afternoons and closer to nighttime is when they get the most confused. So it's like sundown or sundown and talk about yeah, yeah. So yeah, like mid mornings a good time, I think. Yeah. So someone wants to know I was wondering if there would be a possibility of creating take home bags for the caregiver and the aging patient. Is that something that other dot libraries do. I am not sure I have not heard of that that probably would be a really good idea was like I'm that that actually probably would be a really good idea I guess you can take a little little bit of craft for, you know, teens and kids. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do the take home the craft kits for kids and things like that that would be a really good idea to provide those for the, yeah, for the caregivers, and for them to take something home. Yeah, you can work with them. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you mentioned this. How often do you do these once a month. That's about once a month. That's about all we can do. How many different activities do you have at each session. So we all, we always offer like one kind of lead one, which is like the watercolors or the paint, or we have like coloring pencils we do like coloring sheets and like we'll sit down with them and do a coloring sheet with them. But then we also offer if because not everybody wants to do the art craft. We offer like, we have like station so like the therapy putty will all be in one station the puzzles will all be on one table, the fidget blankets, sensory blankets will have those kind of with the therapy putty as well I am so sorry that my phone is going off. I don't even hear it. That's fine. Okay, that's good. And then we'll also have like an area where the snacks are because we have some people who come for the snacks to talk and then they don't do anything else so that also happens. They're there for what they're there for you. They're there with I was like but they're there to talk and enjoy themselves and have a good time. There's usually several different stations just in case nobody wants to do the art craft and things like that, because we have a question about the art so since you're talking about that I'm going to bump down to that one here. They want to know do when you do a painting or something like that do you have a specific thing that they paint, or is it whatever they want. It's whatever they want I'm going to I'm going to go back in my slides the very first page. So this gentleman here in this picture. Yeah, we gave him a paper and we asked him if he wanted something specific and he was like why don't know it's a color. And so I talked to him a little bit and he talked about he used to fix airplanes. So then he was like he was like I want to I want to paint an airplane so you can kind of see it in the corner there. I see that yeah that's awesome. Was the airplane he started painting from our conversation. So it's it's it's really like we'll sometimes do like a lead craft, but it still will be up to them about kind of what they want to do or what they want to paint and then that's what with the watercolor pages we found out you could print designs on the watercolor pages because we had somebody who wanted to do watercolor but she was like but I don't know what to do. She was like I want to do a flower and so we found a picture she liked and then we were able to from our printer print a picture like a outline of a flower and she was able to paint inside and she liked that a lot better. Yeah. A couple questions here about the caregivers that come or the loved one that comes along. Do this the caregiver or the loved one work on and the loved one work on projects together or separately. Or and or the whoever's with them. Are they helpful with it or how does that. Most of our. Yeah, most of our caregivers will work on it together with their with their loved one that they're that they've brought. So they'll sit down with them and they'll let either work on something together or they'll work on it side by side. We rarely have it where the caregiver will leave the loved one they're there. They're right there beside them. So they're usually doing a project with them or helping them with the project that they're working on. Which makes it I'm sure more comfortable for the participant. Yeah. Yes. And here's an interesting idea of someone actually commenting about the take home things we agree add on, but the outing is super important, I think, of getting them out and about and someone sounds like good for socialization. Definitely. Yes. I think you can do a little both have them come because I know sometimes libraries do they have an event at the library that they do something and then send something homes with a little of both. Yeah, I do like a grab bag kind of situation. Yeah, I think that'd be a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I think the socialization is one of the most important parts of the Mary cafe like it's there for fun and for them to do things but it's really hard for them to get out of the house. So, yeah. I was in the question, have you ever thought about doing this as intergenerational like with preschoolers. This person is they have an onsite preschool and it sounds like it would be something interesting to have them interact with. Yeah, so I think we have looked at. We are working on getting our teen advisory board back up and running about having teams come and helping with those. Yeah. Yes, and helping them like, you know, with their paintings or even just talking with them they honestly just love talking with people so having extra extra hands there. We haven't thought about doing younger than that, which that might be that might be something to think about as eventually combining like our, our preschool age with with memory cafe as well. Okay, two, actually two kind of similar questions. I love when these things come in together. So I said, do you ever offer any type of story hour or specific types of books on display that memory care folks might like to look at while visiting. And someone else was never having a good storyteller come in might be a good would that be a good program so similar so story hours storytelling. We haven't done anything with storytellers. I think the only thing with that is like if we had somebody come in and do like a storytelling thing with. It's been so inconsistent with like people coming at all or when they come in because sometimes it's it's sometimes they're like right on time and then sometimes they're like 15 minutes late. And then that coming it it's into the middle of that program. I don't know. I don't know if that would cause any confusion or if it would fill something like or like not feel welcome or something like that. And I was like that's the whole kind of like, at least our take on it is like having the fluidity of it where they feel welcome the entire time they're here no matter when they come. Of course, I don't know if that as well and I don't know if the structure, structured like if we had like a structured story time or anything like that would affect it at all. But I think it's I mean, or just have somebody that's there at maybe just telling stories. Yeah, it looks like we have one more actual question here. We've got about five minutes for our next session. So I think I'm going to wrap up with this one and they said that might have missed this do you require pre registration for this or is it just a whoever shows up whoever shows up. We just with with as small as we are it's whoever shows up whoever is whoever shows up we usually are way over prepared don't have as many show up as we have prepared for so. Yeah, we haven't got to your structure to do that I'm sure yeah. It looks like that was our last actual question great. So, thank you so much and thank you so much for being willing to jump in on the fly here. I got as a comments coming in that I do want to see thanks for sharing the very informational thank you so much for doing appreciate sharing it. If you have a program like this, someone says I'm on Amazon ordering stuff right now. Yay for multitasking. Yay. Someone also has a recommendation they have a subscription to something called activity connection, which was created for activities for senior homes. Okay, exercise or activity connection something specific senior homes that you could look into yeah. I made it much more less daunting and I love this one. This was a great presentation when I came into this I had no desire to have a memory cafe I've changed my mind. Yay. Yes, I was like this is one of my favorite programs so I was very excited you made it very awesome. And so I'm saying, you know, we did a wonderful coming on the spot and jumping in here when I feel like I do better under pressure anyway. Well, thank you so much Aaron for being here yeah.