Manchester Wellness Coalition May meeting: What would it mean to become a dementia friendly community?
Katie Garvey giving a presentation on becoming a dementia friendly community at the Manchester Wellness Coalition meeting on September 22, 2026. Photo credit: Melissa Andersen-Licavoli.
by Sara Swanson
The Manchester Wellness Coalition (MWC), part of the 5 Healthy Towns, held their meeting this month on September 22, 2026. Ruth VanBogelen, one of the Coalition’s two co-chairs led the meeting.
The meeting kicked off with a discussion of two separate but often confused programs, Safe Routes to School and the Walk to School Program. Safe Routes to School involves the MWC and City of Manchester partnering with the Michigan Fitness Foundation and Michigan Department of Transportation to improve infrastructure like sidewalks, crosswalks, and curbs to make it safer for kids to walk to school. The Walk to School program which has been discontinued in Manchester since it’s organizer retired, involved Klager Elementary and Riverside Intermediate students meeting at parks before school and walking to school together with adult chaperones one or more times a week.
Manchester is preparing to apply for Safe Routes to School funding once again, having done it last more than a decade ago. Part of the process involves holding a “walking audit” for which volunteers will be needed to walk together, observe, and record obstacles that impede walkability for students. The last time Manchester held a walking audit was in 2013. Lori Kintz who edits the 5HF’s quarterly magazine, Connected, noted that other 5HF communities are farther along in the Safe Routes to School application process and there will be an article about it in the next edition which was just sent to press.
As far as the Walk to School program, MWC is in talks with Klager Elementary to locate a new organizer to start it back up.
MWC had one chair person for its first 14 years, Ray Berg, who stepped down near the beginning of 2025. At the time, the coalition decided to move to a rotating set of co-chairs serving no more than 2-years. VanBogelen noted that she would be stepping down as co-chair in January. Her co-chair, Autumn Orta was not present at the meeting but VanBogelen asked coalition members to consider whether both she and Orta should step down with two new co-chairs being named in January, or if Orta should stay on for a year longer and then step down so there would be overlap of co-chair terms. This will be on the agenda to discuss at the next meeting.
The speaker for this meeting was Katie Garvey, an occupational therapist who specializes in aging in place, care planning, and care partner training. She is part Dexter’s Dementia Friendly team and came to talk about what it means to be a dementia friendly community. Chelsea has just received the distinction of “Dementia Friendly” while Dexter is starting down that path.
Her presentation included what dementia is, how environments that are not friendly toward dementia are what makes people living with dementia disabled, and who has dementia (currently 2% to 3% of the US population). She also noted that in all cases, changes to make communities more dementia friendly in fact make the communities more friendly for everyone.
In Dexter their dementia friendly efforts are be led by their Wellness Coalition while in Chelsea it is a Rotary task force. The task force in Chelsea has created an action team made up of 30 organizations and community leaders with an advisory panel made up of community members living with dementia. The action team encourages Chelsea businesses and organizations to participate in free workshops and trainings (at one point offering reimbursements for employee wages), and offers programs like memory cafes, music groups, and educational presentations.
Garvey added that if Manchester were to become dementia friendly, we would need to look at existing events as well and ask ourselves, for instance, how we could make the Chicken broil more dementia friendly.
She also noted that the Washtenaw Senior Millage that passed in 2024 which has enabled huge changes for the Manchester Senior Citizens Committee, also included a stated focus on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Holly McDermott, executive director of the Manchester Senior Center talked about the need for resources to assist members living with dementia. The Community Resource Center, whose director and assistant director have been trained by Jim Mangi, the founder of Dementia Friendly Saline, will begin holding office hours at the senior center shortly. McDermott also noted she would try to get Mangi to come give a presentation at the senior center directly.
As the meeting was wrapping up, Kintz reported to the group that the Farm to Table fundraiser held in Grass Lake on September 13 was a huge success, noting it was breezy which made it a little chilly, but overall it was delightful, elegant, and delicious. This was its 11th year and it broke the record for auction donations. Alber Orchard in Freedom Township, which has hosted the event when it has been held in Manchester in the past, donated hundreds of pounds of apples that were turned into pies for dessert.
Everyone is welcome to attend MWC meetings and can become a voting member if they attend over 50% of MWC meetings. Meetings are held monthly (except for July, November, and December) on the fourth Tuesday of the month at noon in the Village Room on the lower level of the Manchester City Hall and Library building.
Next month’s meeting will be on Tuesday, October 27 at noon and will include a guest presentation by MSU Extension.
A grant from 5 Healthy Towns paid for this reporter to attend this meeting and write this article.
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