Mercer Island’s Old Friends Club is on the way for seniors living with mid-stage dementia.

With a motto of laughter, learning and belonging on Mercer Island, the community-based social respite program is part of a statewide network of such organizations and will get underway for six chosen participants on Oct. 10 at Mercer Island Presbyterian Church (MIPC). The club will launch with four-hour gatherings one day a week on Thursdays and may expand to 12 participants and two days a week if the demand arises.

Program coordinator Tanya Su’s parents had dementia and passed away and she soon began volunteering at Elderwise and leading a Woodland Park Zoo walk for caregivers and their loved ones with dementia.

“I just love this population. I think that it’s such an underserved community and I feel like whatever we can do to make people laugh is worth it,” said Islander Su, who attends MIPC and praised the church for donating space, and giving financial support and oversight.

Su added that she hopes the club will bring attention to dementia, reduce stigma around the topic, invite people living with dementia to interact with others — through coffee, conversation, art, exercises, music and more — and give caregivers a break.

“Many people are homebound or just not socializing, and we all know the risk of social isolation. So I feel like it’s very important to bring them back into the fold,” said Su, adding that the club recently held its volunteer orientation and is searching for someone to serve in an assistant role.

Following the closure of the long-running Mercer Island Senior Social Day Care Program after Covid hit, life-long Island resident and program bookkeeper Jackie Wells is glad to be volunteering with the Old Friends Club.

“I was very sad that there wasn’t something that was on the Island. So then I fell into contact with these wonderful women who are starting it up again, and here I am,” she said.

Wells wants to connect with the club participants and bring some joy to their day. Additionally, she knows what it’s like being a caregiver, and “I thought that was very helpful with the Senior Social we had before, that these caregivers made connections and new friends and it was good for everybody.”

The MI Old Friends Club advisory committee includes Wells, Carin Mack (a retired 40-year geriatric social worker), Patti Murphy (Senior Social founder), Barb Levinski (Senior Social 19-year volunteer) and Ruth Hansing (whose husband was a Senior Social participant). When Mack introduced Su to Old Friends Club founder Karen Koenig and that network’s Cecily Kaplan, the seeds to a MI club were sown and now it’s all coming to fruition.

Levinski said that her time spent at Senior Social was the happiest day of her week. Hansing added: “I am very happy that the Old Friends Club program is starting and will offer many of the same benefits as the former Senior Social.”

Island resident Mack will be volunteering with the club along with continuing to lead a local Youth and Family Services support group this is geared toward seniors caring for their spouses or partners with dementia.

Mack feels it’s vital to have another such group available on the Island, where she can put even more effort into helping her community.

“Certainly for people that are living with dementia, and again, for spouses and adult children. They’re the ones that carry the heaviest load dealing with this particular issue for a long period of time,” she said.

Kaplan explained the need for and steps toward instituting an Old Friends Club on the Island and in other communities: “There is a gap in dementia support and that includes a safe, enriching space for a loved one with dementia and reliable, affordable and sustainable respite for the family caregiver. The Old Friends Club Network’s supportive and replicable model of community based/community-led social respite means that community organizations are not starting from scratch and are guided and supported throughout the process of opening an Old Friends Club.”

For monthly fees information and more, visit https://www.oldfriendsclub.org/, or contact ofc@mipc.org and (206) 232-5595.