The Dementia cafe is run by an amazing group of volunteers who give support and relief to those in the community who are affected by dementia by providing a warm, friendly and safe environment where people can come together to socialise, partake in activities and it also gives the carers who are often spouses or other relatives that have eventually found themselves becoming carers 24/7 a chance to relax for a couple of hours, for them this can be very demanding for many reasons including lack of sleep, increased requirement to perform tasks that were once shared, performing personal care to help the person living with dementia.
The cafe gives these people the opportunity to take a break from this by meeting regularly in an environment where everyone can feel relaxed and safe and can share experiences with others affected by dementia rather than feeling isolated and withdrawn.

The activity café environment is a great place to relax, exercise the mind and enjoy the company of others. Mental and physical stimulation is considered to be helpful to people with dementia and the opportunity for the carers to be able to relax with others in similar situations around them and to lift the weight of sole responsibility for a while is invaluable.

It's only been very recently I've started going to the Dementia cafe, but I was amazed by the dedication and compassion shown by the volunteers who run it, the volunteers make and supply the cakes, provide activities for the visitors themselves and in the summer they are planning on staging a barge trip. This would be a wonderful experience for the people who come to the cafe and would create new and wonderful memories, however they need the funds to do this including hiring a coach, the barge itself.

In May I'm running the Edinburgh Marathon and would like it if I could use that as a platform to help raise funds for the barge trip and also to help fund the cafe itself to buy any new equipment they may require in the future.