Puzzles To Remember: Puzzles Helping Alzheimer’s Patients

Puzzles To Remember

PUZZLES TO REMEMBER is a youth led 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the lives of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias through jigsaw puzzles, cognitive engagement, and social connection. Led by Executive Director Hailey Richman, Puzzles To Remember has distributed more than 236,000 puzzles valued at over $2 million to more than 5,000 memory care communities, nursing homes, veterans facilities, senior centers, and other organizations across all 50 states and 16 countries. Our programs have benefited more than one million people while diverting approximately 148 tons of puzzles from landfills through donation and reuse. Puzzles To Remember also promotes intergenerational connection through Puzzle Time, which brings young people together with individuals living with dementia for shared puzzle solving, conversation, and companionship. Our mission is to provide engaging and purposeful activities that promote connection, participation, and joy while enhancing the quality of life of those affected by dementia. Donate Puzzles If you have puzzles you would like to donate, please contact us at Puzzles2Remember@gmail.com. We will help identify a location where your puzzles can benefit individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Donation acknowledgment letters are available upon request.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Puzzles Helping Alzheimer’s Patients

By Max Wallack Puzzles to Remember

It’s been a great week for PuzzlesToRemember. This past week, I was instrumental in placing puzzles in over 40 nursing facilities. I was able to provide puzzles to 20 specialized Alzheimer’s Disease units, with the help of Springbok Puzzles, who provided their Springbok PuzzlesToRemember for these facilities. These are great 36 large-sized piece puzzles, with bright colors and memory provoking themes. They can be viewed here.

I provided an additional 13 facilities with puzzles that I personally collected from bins I have placed in various locations in Massachusetts.

Approximately 10 facilities were supplied with puzzles as a result of people around the country, who contacted me at PuzzlesToRemember@gmail.com. I was able to locate a facility in their area to which they could bring their puzzles. The facilities were very grateful, and I was able to provide a tax donation letter to the owners of the donated puzzles.

I was very pleased to receive this letter of appreciation from The Springs at Missoula in Missoula, Montana:

“Max - Thank you for your generous gift of puzzles. The residents in our memory care will thoroughly enjoy them! You are doing an amazing and very thoughtful thing, in honor of your great grandmother! What a commitment, but rewarding project, knowing you are making a difference in so many lives! Thank you, again, for your gift of puzzles!”

Thank you for your wonderful note! You encourage me to keep providing puzzles to help those afflicted with this disease, while also pursuing my research in the hopes of attacking this disease from many fronts.

Max Wallack is a student at Boston University. His great grandmother, Gertrude, suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Max is the founder of PUZZLES TO REMEMBER. PTR is a project that provides puzzles to nursing homes and veterans institutions that care for Alzheimer's and dementia patients.