Excellence in Dementia Care, Engagement, Research & Support: The Ginny Gives® Awards
What if innovation in Dementia care could help someone sing again, create again, move again, connect again—or simply experience a moment of joy with someone they love?
At the Dementia Society of America®, we believe innovation isn't limited to laboratories, medicines, or technology. Innovation can also happen at a piano, around an art table, on a dance floor, in a garden, or during a quiet moment between a person living with Dementia and someone who cares about them.
That belief is at the heart of the Ginny Gives® Awards.
Named in honor of Ginny J., whose journey with Dementia helped inspire the founding of the Dementia Society of America, Ginny Gives Awards recognize others who develop and deliver creative ways to improve life for people living with Dementia and their care partners.
Dementia Innovation That Improves Life Today
Dementia research is essential. We need scientists searching for better ways to understand, detect, treat, prevent, and someday overcome the many diseases and conditions that can cause Dementia.
But people and families affected by Dementia also need help today.
That is why the Dementia Society supports a broad approach—one that combines Dementia education, research, care, support, and life engagement.
Life engagement focuses on the person, not simply the diagnosis. Music, visual arts, dance and movement, touch and sensory experiences, storytelling, gardening, animals, theater, and other creative approaches can provide opportunities for participation, expression, comfort, and human connection.
The Ginny Gives Awards celebrate innovative work in these areas and encourage others to imagine what else might be possible.
Seeing the Person, Not Just Dementia
Dementia may affect memory, language, reasoning, and independence. But those changes do not erase the person.
Someone who cannot remember the name of a favorite song may still sing when the music begins. Someone who has difficulty finding words may communicate through color, movement, rhythm, touch, or a smile.
Moments matter: Ginny Gives Awards
They remind us that good Dementia care isn't only about addressing what has been lost. It is also about discovering, supporting, and celebrating what remains.
Your Gift to Dementia Society Helps Fuel Innovation
When donors support the Dementia Society of America, they help make a much larger mission possible.
Your generosity helps us advance Dementia awareness and education, support families, encourage innovative approaches to life engagement, and help fund promising Dementia research.
Ginny Gives represents an important part of that mission because innovation can take many forms.
Sometimes innovation means a scientist asking a question that has never been asked before.
Sometimes it means an educator finding a better way to help a family understand Dementia.
Sometimes it means a caregiver discovering that a familiar song can reach someone when words cannot.
And sometimes it means recognizing an extraordinary idea and helping others learn from it.
More Life in Every Day
The Ginny Gives Awards are ultimately about possibility.
They challenge us to think differently about Dementia—not only in terms of disorders, disability, and decline, but also in terms of what we can do to improve quality of life.
We still have much to discover. Much work remains in Dementia research. And millions of individuals and families need information, encouragement, resources, and support right now.
Together, through compassion, creativity, research, and innovation, we can help change the experience of Dementia—while putting more life in every day.
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