{"id":454497,"date":"2026-10-02T18:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T18:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/454497\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T18:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T18:30:22","slug":"friday-friends-are-sparking-joy-at-wilshire-baptist-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/454497\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Friends are ‘sparking joy’ at Wilshire Baptist Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Badminton at Friday Friends<\/p>\n

When doctors deliver a diagnosis of dementia, recipients number more than just one. For many families, caregivers find that their lives change dramatically, too.<\/p>\n

Step into Wilshire Baptist Church<\/a> two Fridays a month, and you\u2019ll find folks singing, playing games and creating crafts. At first glance, you\u2019ll think the carefully coordinated program, with its seasonal themes and energetic volunteers, is all about giving participants a safe, stimulating outlet with opportunities to socialize and have fun. And that\u2019s true. But Friday Friends<\/a> was created as a respite for spouses, siblings, children and other caregivers who simply need a few hours to visit their own doctor, get a haircut, catch up on household chores, enjoy lunch with friends or take a much-needed nap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not here to treat their disease,\u201d explains Debbie Rampey, who volunteers as the development officer at Friday Friends. \u201cWe\u2019re not here to cure them. We are not therapists, doctors or social workers. We\u2019re here to have fun and entertain and be a social outlet while their caregiver has a chance to go do whatever they want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

About seven million people in the United States suffer from dementia, and many are cared for at home by a loved one. You may be familiar with Alzheimer\u2019s, but a constellation of diseases and conditions can lead to dementia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn their early stages, people can stay at home by themselves,\u201d says Rampey, \u201cbut as the disease progresses they\u2019re not safe at home by themselves. You hear about people turning on the stove and catching the house on fire or getting very anxious because they don\u2019t know where their loved one is. It gets to the point that the loved one can\u2019t go anywhere without taking the person with dementia along. These caregivers need a break, and that\u2019s what we provide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday Friends pairs one volunteer with one enrollee, and additional volunteers administer the program and plan activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes more people that way, but our volunteers love it,\u201d Rampey says. \u201cEven on days when we\u2019ve had more volunteers than we needed and called to tell people they could stay home, they came anyway. We build relationships, and the volunteers want to be here to spend time with the participants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday Friends runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and church membership is never required. A few also participate in other local programs, such as North Park Presbyterian\u2019s Casa de Vida<\/a> on select Wednesdays, Highland Park UMC\u2019s Journey<\/a> each Thursday, Westminster Presbyterian\u2019s Making Memories<\/a> on select Thursdays, First Unitarian\u2019s Unforgettable Friends<\/a> on Wednesdays and a host of other suburban programs in the area. Participation is free at Friday Friends, but some other programs charge a nominal amount to cover lunch or supplies. Some require caregivers to bring a sack lunch.<\/p>\n

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Meal time<\/p>\n

\u201cHere at Wilshire, we have a chef in the building, which I love,\u201d says Rampey. \u201cWe have a hot lunch every time at no charge. Today\u2019s theme was football, so we had hamburgers and tater tots with rice crispy treats shaped like footballs for dessert. All of today\u2019s activities and crafts and songs are football-themed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the coming year, participants will see ghosts and goblins in October, holiday memories in December, Mardi Gras in February and shamrocks in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoutine is very important to people with dementia, because they can become very anxious. They need to know what to expect,\u201d says Rampey. \u201cWe always have music \u2014 longtime church member Max Tucker loves to play piano and lead us in singing. Music is one of the last skills that leaves a person with dementia, and we have had people get anxious, then sit down at the piano and play beautifully. We\u2019ve had people who are losing the ability to hold a conversation, but then they know every word to a Baptist hymn or a song from the 1940s. It may or may not carry over to the next activity, but for that period of time, they are having a blast. Music sparks joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tucker and his team select a wide range of songs in hopes that each attendee will recognize a few old favorites and sing along. The task isn\u2019t easy, since there are some with early onset dementia who haven\u2019t reached the age of 60, while others are well into their 80s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re doing national parks, we might sing \u2018This Land is Your Land,\u2019\u201d says Rampey. \u201cWhen we celebrate Fourth of July or Veterans Day, we\u2019re singing the Academy songs. When we do football, we might sing the Aggie and Longhorn and Sooner fight songs. We\u2019ll sing \u2018Great Is Thy Faithfulness,\u2019 \u2018You are My Sunshine\u2019 and \u2018Fly Me to the Moon.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

DSO Cares<\/a> is an outreach of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra which sends musicians directly to Friday Friends as well as hospitals, schools for disadvantaged children and other organizations throughout Dallas free of charge. A group called Texas Winds<\/a> is comprised of community musicians who do the same.<\/p>\n

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Luau Limbo<\/p>\n

In addition to volunteers and support from Wilshire Baptist Church, Friday Friends depends heavily on donations. They are one of 22 local nonprofits supported by the AWARE Foundation<\/a>, which invests in local dementia programs and research. AWARE will deliver more than $400,000 in grants this year alone. Friday Friends has also received grants from appreciative family members.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not babysitting \u2014 it\u2019s four hours of relief,\u201d says Program Director Terry Wade. \u201cAs much the caregiver loves this person, they are giving 24-hour attention. There are just so many different things that can occur where the caregiver is the only person they are dealing with. They know they can bring their loved one to Friday Friends and they\u2019ll be safe and engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know who is caring for a loved one with dementia would like to participate in Friday Friends, contact Minister to Senior Adults Katie Murray at kmurray@wilshirebc.org<\/a> or Outreach Coordinator Linda Lyles at Lilyles@sbcglobal.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wilshire Baptist Church is at 4316 Abrams Road.<\/p>\n

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Indoor golf<\/p>\n

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Magnatiles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Badminton at Friday Friends When doctors deliver a diagnosis of dementia, recipients number more than just one. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12038,156063,102,104,103,156064,9064,156065,75788,156066,156067,116850],"class_list":["post-454497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-alzheimers","tag-caregiver-respite","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-debbie-rampey","tag-dementia","tag-friday-friends","tag-katie-murray","tag-linda-lyles","tag-terry-wade","tag-wilshire-baptist-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}