Choose Your Location!

A light breakfast will be served at each event. These events are FREE to the public, but space is limited!

Please RSVP to the Agency on Aging Northeastern Illinois at (630) 293-5990 or [email protected] and specify which event you will be attending

These events are sponsored by Illinois Continuity of Care, AMITA Health, Tabor Hills Living Community, The Garlands of Barrington and AARP.

Dementia Friendly communities have committed to working with people with dementia and their support systems to make them feel included in the community. Too often, people living with dementia and their caregivers feel alone, isolated and unable to participate or engage in activities they have always loved. Dementia friendly communities engage multiple sectors of the community that commit to helping people with dementia live as independently as possible. 

The Agency on Aging Northeastern Illinois will continue their efforts in 2019 by engaging more communities and businesses in becoming Dementia Friendly. They plan to host memory cafes and Tales and Travels Memories programs through local libraries. The Agency plans to train more businesses on how to serve people with dementia through their Dementia Friendly Business Sector Trainings. In 2018, The Agency on Aging trained nearly 8,000 people to become dementia friendly through community presentations and business sector trainings. 

Early SNAP Benefits, not Extra Benefits, in February

The USDA emphasizes that this is an early benefit, not an extra benefit. The change in timing is to enable the USDA to issue February benefits while still complying with the terms of the continuing resolution that kept the federal government fully funded until December 22, 2018. Issuing the early benefits will be an administrative challenge, but the funds are available to do so.

Most SNAP recipients will have access to their February SNAP benefits in late January, rather than on their regular issuance date in February. But the benefit amount will be the same as usual, and must last until the regular issuance date in March . It is not yet clear how March benefits will be handled if the shutdown lasts that long.

More than 38 million people in more than 19 million households receive SNAP benefits, which average about $125 per person per month. Almost a third of households receiving SNAP include a senior or person with a disability. SNAP targets low income households, and more than 92% of SNAP benefits go to households with cash incomes at or below the poverty level, including 56% of benefits to households with incomes at or below half of the poverty level.

The partial shutdown affects the USDA and some other government agencies and programs because Congress has not yet approved their appropriation bills. Congress used continuing resolutions to keep the government functioning at 2018 funding levels after fiscal year 2019 began on October 1, 2018, but the last resolution expired December 22. The White House and Congress are at an impasse over various issues, but there is no controversy about the amount of SNAP benefits.

Call the Friendship Line any time, day or night, at (800) 971-0016

The Friendship Line is the Institute on Aging's 24-hour toll-free accredited crisis line for persons aged 60 years and older, and adults living with disabilities.