Infinite Helping Hands to Host Dementia Resource Fair on July 28

Infinite Helping Hands, 5201 Waterford Drive in Sheffield Village, recognized the need for dementia care throughout Lorain County.

On July 28, the organization will kick off its mission with a resource fair to help people with dementia.

The fair is working with several organizations in Northeast Ohio, according to Infinite Helping Hands Director of Business Development Mary Cook.

“Infinite Helping Hands provides home health care services in the community,” Cook said. “We have partnered with many other providers and want to have really meaningful conversations about aging in Lorain County.”

“We are raising money for LIFE: A Dementia Friendly Foundation (for this event).”

LIFE: The Dementia Friendly Foundation has become one of the leading organizations helping people with dementia in the area, according to Cook.

The organization’s “memory cafe” events have sprung up in Northeast Ohio with great success throughout the area, she said.

The event hopes to connect caregivers of people with dementia with LIFE: A Dementia Friendly Foundation and other organizations to get the help they need, Cook said.

“The goal of the event was to bring together a panel of different organizations that deal with senior care,” she said. “(The organizations) can really have good conversations about whether you need hospice care, whether you’re not sure about home care.

“If I can’t help, I always want to send them to someone I know who can. I will never send you back to Google.”

The event will feature members from University Hospitals, the Lorain County Office on Aging, Hospice Western Reserve and several other organizations, Cook said.

There is a huge need in Lorain County to bring together educational resources and services on this topic in one place, she said.

People with dementia, as well as their caregivers, desperately need events like this and education on the issue, Cook said.

“The need is great,” she said. “With the amount of people that all of us in this network of people (care for) on a daily basis, the need is great for people to be educated in the community about what their resources are.

“I feel like a lot of times people call me and say, ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go.’”

In addition to helping those with dementia, Cook said the resource fair aims to help create a community among caregivers of people with dementia.

LIFE: The Dementia Friendly Foundation also focuses on creating a community among caregivers of people with dementia, and Infinite Helping Hands hopes to foster that sense of camaraderie and community, she said.

“I feel like when you’re going into some of these things on your own, there’s not a very good sense of support,” Cook said. “You need that extra support and that extra experience from other people.

“We’re really trying to create good conversations where people can come and share their experiences.”

Infinite Helping Hands will hold its first dementia resource fair event from 1pm to 4pm on July 28th.

The event is open to seniors with dementia and their caregivers.

For more information about the resource fair, call 440-965-0999.