Our Services
Memory Cafe Resources
- Looking for a Memory Cafe? Visit www.memorycafedirectory.com
- Want to start a Memory Cafe? Visit https://dfamerica.org/create-mca-profile/ for a free online training and more!
- Join the Memory Cafe Alliance mailing list here to keep in touch with everything Memory Cafe: https://dfamerica.org/mca-newsletter/
- Questions? Email memorycafes@dfamerica.org to learn more.
JF&CS Memory Café Percolator
From 2014 through 2025 the JF&CS Memory Cafe Percolator served as a free resource-sharing network to help others throughout the U.S. and beyond to start and sustain Memory Cafes. In 2025, the Percolator passed the torch to the Memory Cafe Alliance. The Memory Cafe Alliance, powered by Dementia Friendly America, now runs the national learning community for Memory Cafes. The Resource Archive below is free for you to use!
Memory Cafes (MCs) welcome people living with dementia along with caring family members, friends and professional caregivers to socialize and participate in meaningful and joyful programming. This meaningful social engagement is a crucial part of wellbeing. The research on Memory Cafes to date suggests that they are a low-cost way to reduce isolation for both care partners.
Memory Cafes began in the Netherlands in 1997 and have since spread around the world, largely due to a passionate grassroots effort. Cafés meet in varied locations, such as libraries, community centers, museums, restaurants, and houses of worship. Cafés should fit the interests, needs, language, and culture of their local community, so each Café is unique. Their main purpose is to provide a welcoming, stigma-free social setting where people living with dementia and their care partners can meet others and enjoy time together. Cafés can also reduce stigma by showing that joy, self-expression and purpose can continue to be part of life with dementia.
In early 2014, JF&CS launched the second Memory Cafe in Massachusetts. Many Greater Boston organizations expressed interest in the Cafe model, and guests participants of the JF&CS Memory Cafe asked for more locations and meeting dates. In response, JF&CS convened a small group of providers in Greater Boston to encourage them to start their own Memory Cafe. This grew into the JF&CS Memory Cafe Percolator, a free resource-sharing network.
Over the next decade, hundreds of Memory Cafes leaders used the Percolator’s English and Spanish toolkit, Tip Sheets, and other resources to start Cafes serving tens of thousands of people. These leaders built a creative community of sharing through the quarterly idea exchanges and listserv, as well as local networks.
As the Percolator continued to grow, it became clear that a national organization would have greater capacity to scale the availability of Memory Cafes. Anne Basting, founder of TimeSlips, secured support for a yearlong strategic planning process from Maude’s Awards of the Ferry Foundations, and as the lead team brought in Beth Soltzberg from the Percolator, Susan McFadden of the Fox Valley Memory Cafes, and Sam Goodrich from TimeSlips. A national Alliance and hundreds of Percolator participants helped to guide this process, called EMC2. The final strategic plan is available here [EMC2 Final Plan.pdf].
The Memory Cafe Alliance, powered by Dementia Friendly America, now hosts a national Memory Cafe directory, an online training on how to run a Memory Cafe and other free resources, as well as an active learning community.
Special thanks:
Individuals and organizations too numerous to mention have helped to develop and spread Memory Cafes, creating a strong, inventive, resilient grassroots movement. Philanthropic funding and in-kind support has also been critical in sustaining these efforts. Many thanks to: AARP, Brookdale Foundation, Dementia Action Alliance, Family Caregiver Alliance and Rosalinde Gilbert Innovations in Alzheimer’s Disease Caregiving Legacy Awards, Lebovitz Family Charitable Trust, Lifetime Arts, Maude’s Awards and Maude’s Ventures, Ralph C. Wilson, Jr, Foundation, and RRF Foundation for Aging.
Memory Cafe Resource Links
- TEDx Talk: Memory Cafes - Making Space for Dementia and Joy
- JF&CS Memory Cafe Percolator 10th anniversary video
Cafe Directory
Cafe Toolkits, Resource Guides, and Tip Sheets
- Memory Cafe Alliance free, self-paced online training. Visit Memory Café Alliance at www.memorycafedirectory.com Online training courses on Memory Cafe Operations, Dementia & Caregiving for the Memory Cafe Context, and Facilitation Tips for Memory Cafes
- Memory Cafe Toolkit and Virtual/Hybrid Toolkit Supplement in English and in Spanish
A step-by-step guide to starting and sustaining a Memory Cafe. - Memory Cafe Guide to Leadership and Other Meaningful Roles for People Living with Dementia:
The Percolator and Dementia Action Alliance collaborated to create this guide to help Memory Café coordinators to support their participants in taking on active, meaningful roles at the Cafes. - Percolator Tip Sheets: Funding Your Cafe; Promoting Your Cafe; Questions for Guest Facilitators
Archive of Percolator Quarterly Idea Exchanges
Percolator meetings are held quarterly in Waltham, Massachusetts and by Zoom/conference call. We began recording the meetings in June 2019.
2025
- September 2025 Idea Exchange (9/18/25): Memory Cafe Alliance and next steps for the Memory Cafe learning community, and Memory Makers of the Midsouth's traveling Memory Cafe. See the slides from the meeting, and Tip Sheets and other Resources shared by Memory Makers of the Midsouth.
- June 2025 Idea Exchange (6/18/25): First United Methodist Church Memory Cafe (FL) and how to engage faith communities; Memory Cafe Alliance update. See the slides from the meeting.
- March 2025 Idea Exchange (3/13/25): Chinese American Service League Memory Cafe; Memory Cafe Alliance update including new online Cafe training modules. See the slides from the meeting.
2024
- December 2024 Idea Exchange (12/11/24): Pima Council on Aging Memory Cafes; Introducing the Memory Cafe Alliance. See the slides from the meeting. Here are Pima Council on Aging's sample MC schedules, Memory Cafe activity survey, initial participant surveys, and ongoing participant surveys.
- September 2024 Idea Exchange (9/12/24): Percolator 10th anniversary celebration; Unveiling the EMC2 national strategic plan for Memory Cafes. See the slides from the meeting. Watch and share the 3 minute 10th anniversary video.
- June 2024 Idea Exchange (6/7/24): Traveling Memory Cafes; EMC2 update & branding. See the slides from the meeting.
- March 2024 Idea Exchange (3/14/24): Hope & Healing Memory Cafes; Memory Cafe Branding. See the slides from the meeting.
2023
- December 2023 Idea Exchange (12/13/23): Memory Cafe Nova Scotia; Priorities survey results and EMC2 initiative to scale access to Memory Cafes. See the slides from the meeting.
- September 2023 Idea Exchange (9/14/23): Cafe de los Recuerdos at Gail Borden Library in Elgin, IL; Cafe Chats with Dementia Action Alliance. See the slides from the meeting.
- June 2023 Idea Exchange (6/14/23): SA Amigos Memory Cafe, Texas Memory Cafe Network, and Cafe research; How to fund your café. See the slides from the meeting. Here is the qualitative study of memory cafés by Masoud et al., that was discussed during the meeting.
- March 2023 Idea Exchange (3/9/23): Lorenzo’s House support for people with younger onset dementia, and Cafe Connection of NJ on rebuilding after loss. See the slides from the meeting. Here is the trailer to the Lorenzo’s House short film that was shown during the meeting.
2022
- December 2022 Idea Exchange (12/14/22): “History and Hope: The Origins of Memory Cafes & Thoughts about the Future,” and the Memory Cafe at the Denver Public Library. See the slides from the meeting.
- September 2022 Idea Exchange (9/8/22): Ideas for making your cafe welcoming for LGBTQIA+ participants, and participants with a trauma background. See the slides from the meeting.
- June 2022 Idea Exchange (6/8/22): Waukesha Public Library Memory Cafe and structured brainstorming on outreach and attendance; Harmony Cafe on designing activities that work for all ability levels. See the slides and handout from the meeting.
- March 2022 Idea Exchange (3/10/22): Simultaneous and sequential hybrid cafe presentations (serving guests both in person and virtually), and discussion of next steps for the Percolator. See the slides from the meeting.
2021
- December 2021 Idea Exchange (12/8/21): With Dementia Action Alliance, discussion of meaningful roles that people living with dementia can take to help shape and lead memory cafes. See the slides from the meeting.
- September 2021 Idea Exchange (9/9/21): Library Memory Project's Hybrid Cafe; Results from the Percolator survey of how we are providing cafes now. See the slides from the meeting.
- June 2021 Idea Exchange (6/9/21): Boston Memory Cafes for Black/African American guests, and Spanish-speaking guests; Elderwise exploration of the heart of memory cafes. See the slides from the meeting.
- March 2021 Meeting (3/11/21): Metrowest Memory Cafe Provider Coalition; Memories International; Percolator survey on how cafes plan to operate in 2021. See the slides from the meeting.
2020
- December 2020 Meeting (12/9/20): Virtual 5th Street Cafe and Activities for People Living at Home with Dementia; TimeSlips resource update; Percolator survey on cafes’ adaptations to pandemic. See the slides from the meeting.
- September 2020 Meeting (9/10/20): Five memory cafés in the U.S. and Brazil adapt to COVID-19 through virtual or outdoor programming. See the slides from the meeting.
- June 2020 Meeting (6/10/20): Virtual JF&CS Memory Cafe; A panel of teaching artists spoke about their transition to facilitating virtual cafes. See the slides from the meeting.
- COVID-19 Response Meeting (4/28/20): Idea exchange about virtual memory cafes. See the slides from the meeting.
- COVID-19 Response Meeting (3/24/20): How memory cafés are responding to the coronavirus. See the slides from the meeting.
- March 2020 Meeting: Literacy-based Cafe programming; Brookline’s Memory Connections Cafe & Camp Memory Connections; Short brainstorm about the response to COVID-19
2019
- December 2019 Meeting: Burlington’s Memory Cafe; results of Percolator survey on how cafés create a sense of community and belonging
- September 2019 Meeting: South Shore Conservatory Memory Cafes; results of Percolator survey on how cafés respond to death and disease progression
- June 2019 Meeting: West County Memory Cafe of Shelburne Falls; supporting guests with Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) at a memory cafe
Materials to promote Memory Cafes
- Memory Cafe Alliance Promotional Toolkit - https://dfamerica.org/mca-toolkit/ This toolkit includes resources to help you share information about Memory Cafes with the general public, providers/prescribers, and people who are interested in starting Memory Cafes.
- Massachusetts Memory Cafe public service announcement videos (1 minute):
Watch on YouTube in English, Spanish and Portuguese
This video introduces the general public to Memory Cafes.
Download and share the video files with your cable station:
Memory Cafe PSA - English
Memory Cafe PSA - Portuguese
Memory Cafe PSA - Spanish
Informational Videos
- TEDx Talk: Memory Cafes - Making Space for Dementia and Joy
Our own Beth Soltzberg spoke at TEDxWaltham about creating safe spaces for those with and without dementia to experience connection, creativity, and joy. - Spanish webinar on starting a Spanish-speaking Memory Cafe
A 25-minute video explaining how to start and run a café, focusing on the experience of Aroma de Cafe, the first Spanish-speaking Memory Café in Massachusetts. - Webinar on IDD-Inclusive Memory Cafes
A 38-minute video about the lessons learned by nine Memory Cafes that partnered with the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services starting in 2016 to serve people with intellectual/developmental disabilities who are also living with dementia. - Webinar on starting a Memory Cafe network
A 30-minute video about how the JF&CS Percolator Network got started, its benefits, and how people in other states or regions can start their own Memory Cafe network. - Webinar: How to Start a Memory Cafe. An hour presentation by Beth Soltzberg with a spotlight by JoAnn Sharman on the SA Amigos Memory Cafe, a bilingual Spanish/English cafe. Presented at the Dementia Friendly Washington conference, September 2023.
Get support
SeniorDirect
This free service is staffed by eldercare professionals who will connect you with the resources and expert advice you need.
Aging Life Care Management
Your Elder Experts
Your Elder Experts is a team of caring professionals who guide older adults and their families through the complexities and challenges of aging well.