From Start to Finish and Everything In Between
- aria1679
- Jun 30
- 12 min read
Taking a look back at Amy’s Place
Written by Aria Nguyen
Please stay updated for edits/updates on this piece
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On a Tuesday afternoon if you find yourself in the Target wing of Bellis Fair Mall, you may be met with the echoes of laughter, synchronized clapping, and more than a few exclamations. It would be right to assume the noise is coming from mall walkers, groups of wandering teenagers, or other store fronts like the arcade.
However, there is another culprit to add to the mix—Amy’s Place.
Just over a year ago Dementia Support Northwest (DSNW) opened its doors to our dementia-friendly community center, the first of its kind in Whatcom County, that is Amy’s Place.
The dementia nonprofit, previously known as the Alzheimer’s Society of Washington, was founded in the early ‘80s by a group of six to eight people looking to use their experiences with dementia to better the community.
Josselyn Winslow, one of the organization’s founders, said during an interview back in February that there was no plan for the organization, just a common understanding.
“We just continued, and we realized that it [dementia] was an issue we really needed to deal with,” Winslow said.
Winslow’s mother, who was taken care of by Josselyn and Josselyn’s husband Frank, passed away in 1983 after her own journey with dementia.
“And although my mother died…the situation didn’t go away,” Winslow said. “So we just kept doing it.”
Now, the organization has taken roots in Bellis Fair Mall with a variety of weekly and monthly programs that provide resources and offer support to those living with dementia, their care partners, and others looking for a third space.
The need for dementia-friendly spaces
From when DSNW was founded, to the opening of Amy’s Place, trends of dementia diagnoses have continued to climb.
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) article published in 2024, around 6.7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia.
In Washington state alone, more than 125,000 individuals were living with some form of dementia in 2020, as stated in the Washington State Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias. By 2040, this number is projected to increase to more than 270,000, as stated in the same document.
Despite the prevalence in the broader society and our local communities today, dementia and dementia-related illnesses continue to face stigmatization.
Bianca Brijnath and Lee-Fay Low write in their essay “Challenging dementia stigma in popular culture: why we need media guidelines,” published in the World Alzheimer’s Report 2024, that much of society’s pop culture reinforces stereotypes around aging and care—with people living with dementia described as ‘patients’ or ‘sufferers’ rather than having agency.
This further perpetuates negative connotations associated with dementia, and can even reinforce internalized stigmas.
“Nobody would say you lose your personhood, [that] you're no longer a valued human being, but it's very entrenched in our culture that our value is tied to our cognition, our ability, and our cognitive ability,” Marigrace Becker, director of the Memory Hub, explains as she addresses the common misconceptions and perceptions of those living with dementia.
Opening in 2022, the Memory Hub is a dementia-friendly community space spearheaded by the University of Washington Memory and Brain Wellness Center (MBWC). It offers a safe and inviting space for care partners and those living with dementia.
Becker adds that people living with dementia are still very capable of learning new things through memory habit, and have “amazing emergent talent” that the community gets to see at the Memory Hub through their programming.
“You have a lot to offer, you're still a valuable person, you matter within the community,” she added.
This stigmatization is why when the Alzheimer’s Association Center for Dementia Respite Innovation (CDRI) grant came across Bethany Chamberlin’s desk, she was inspired to bring a dementia-friendly community space to Whatcom County.
“[Dementia] has never had its place at the table as a population that deserves a space in the public community,” Chamberlain she added. “I was tired of waiting for society to be like, ‘okay, it's okay, for people who have some brain change to come and be in the public.”
Chamberlain, health and human services planner for Northwest Regional Council, has 20 years of experience in the dementia field.
When Chamberlin moved to Bellingham during the Covid-19 pandemic, she was not working due to having a four-month-old infant and two other kids. As restrictions were lifted, she would take her children to Bellis Fair Mall—these visits are where the inspiration for Amy’s Place came from.
“I was just kind of like, ‘Wow we need dementia in this mall,’” Chamberlin added. “I just [thought to myself] it's time for us to claim this spot. And given that malls have pretty affordable space, they're accessible on bus lines, there's parking, they're ADA accessible…there's a ton of older adults that use the mall for physical activity…it just seemed to make sense.”
Making a dream a reality
With her vision, and the CDRI grant, Chamberlain contacted Judy Davis—who was just hired to be the new executive director for DSNW.
“Bethany Chamberlain brought it to my attention and arranged a meeting to tell me about an idea that she had of opening something up dementia-friendly community center in a mall, " Davis said. “That was her dream… I wasn't even aware that this could be a thing, that you could open up a dementia-friendly community center in a mall, that it would actually work.”
Davis, who cared for her father living with Alzheimer’s until he passed, stated she was looking for a higher calling when she found out about the role with DSNW.
“When I was looking for a job afterwards, I wanted to help people with Alzheimer's, and specifically in a nonprofit role,” Davis explained as she had grown tired of working in corporate America.
Davis recounted the meeting with Chamberlin, both of them identifying their strengths and what they could offer during the process of pitching and building Amy’s Place.
Davis owned her own retail coffee chains in Canada, therefore being familiar with contracting, working with architects, and building out spaces.
“So it was like this perfect marriage of ideas,” Chamberlin enthused. “I wrote the grant, and she helped me with that a little bit….but then she totally made it come to fruition.”
Chamberlin added that each person contributed what they had to offer, and as more people joined their endeavors—such as current DSNW Operations Manager Heather Carter—the building process became easier.
“Heather stepped in there and helped pump Judy along and give her the confidence she needed to make some of the hard decisions,” Chamberlin added.
Both Davis and Chamberlin agreed one of the largest challenges they faced was raising enough funds to start the construction and eventually open Amy’s Place.
Though Dementia Support Northwest was awarded $240,000 dollars, before they could accept the grant the organization was required to match those funds.
“We could not accept the money from the grant until we raised the money for the match, and to be able to pay for the construction, because the grant would not pay for any construction costs at all,” Davis explained. “So it was a lot of raising, high stakes, high money, rotary presentations, that was my focus, really.”
Along with funding challenges, there were some questions about embedding a dementia-friendly space in the mall.
Shawn Monninger, Good Times Club Program Coordinator for DSNW, shared his initial reservations.
“The expectation was… not really sure what to expect, right? I mean, going into the mall [you’re not] sure who you’re going to reach here, right? What is the demographic you really think of that's in the mall? And the first thing you think of is not so much the retired demographic cruising the mall,” Monninger said.
However, Monninger said he heard a number of people in the community state they walk in the mall when Bellingham experiences bad weather.
“So that audience was here, right?” he said. “ I was surprised by that, in a good way, that there's a lot more people in here that we can reach than I thought initially we would reach.”
With that Monninger highlighted the difficulties of auditory and visual stimulation that may overwhelm individuals, which are issues staff at Amy’s Place are still trying to navigate.
Despite those initial expectations and challenges, Monninger said Amy’s Place has benefitted DSNW and the community in many ways.
“When I joined [the organization], it was basically mostly volunteers, people working 20 hours or less a week, if they were getting paid at all, and we had a little tiny closet of an office that we operated our organization out of,” Monninger said. “Which [this] gave us no ability to reach anybody in the community, because we didn't have a central location where people could come in and interact with us or any staff.”
Monninger added that Amy’s Place being embedded in the mall facilitated the organization's ability to have border outreach in the community.
“Amy's Place, or Dementia Support Northwest, has been providing invaluable services to people for ages, like the work that they are doing with education and also counseling and helping one on one. Part of my vision was finding a place where, if we put it in front of people, then more people would step forward and say, ‘Okay give me information. What do you have available?’ And it would destigmatize the process just a little bit. That was a huge goal in putting it in the mall,” Chamberlin said.
After months of reconstructing a previous retail space, Amy’s Placed opened its doors on June 11, 2025.
Living the dream
“I have never experienced anything like that, seeing something built from the ground up,” Program Assistant Lynna Hall said. “There was a lot of construction, and a lot of paint, basically transforming the space to meet the needs of Dementia Support Northwest.”
Hall and DSNW Operations Manager Heather Carter, were some of the first hires Davis brought on board when she was hired as the executive director.
“We had just three people in a little office, and me and Heather were sharing a table together,” Hall chuckled. “We had to stretch the printer cord across the room and try not to trip over it.”
Hall said the staff they had at the time were full of anticipation for what they were building and the future of the organization.
David Prince, the general manager for Bellis Fair Mall has his own experiences with Dementia, adding to his excitement for the grand opening.
“I have an uncle who passed from Alzheimer's [and] my mother-in-law just recently got diagnosed,” he said. For my wife and her dad, it's been a very big struggle to get help, especially during the early stages when family members were noticing something wasn't quite right, but she didn't want to admit it and my father in-law didn’t want to admit it.”
Prince explained these personal experience is why he believed Amy’s Place was a great addition to Bellis Fair.
With malls across America going through changes, “in some cases the closure of struggling retail stores allows for stronger brands or a new type of business,” according to the Michigan Journal of Economics.
Prince said he is happy Bellis Fair has the flexibility to incorporate non-retail spaces in Bellis Fair. Over the years the mall has found a home for branches of The Bellingham Public Library, the Whatcom Intergenerational School, and now Amy’s Place.
However, Prince said there are some limitations.
“I say flexibility, unfortunately, there is still there's a certain point that we can't flex past some of our larger retail tenants, there's actually stuff in their leases that if we get a certain percentage of non-retail spaces, they get to pay us a lot less money, they want people coming to this location that are coming here to shop,” he explained.
Some retailers may think if people spend their time in Amy’s Place, or non-retail spaces, they are less inclined to spend money, Prince mentioned.
“In the changing retail environment, where so much in the last 30 years has switched to online shopping, just getting people on property and being active on property is only a good thing for those tenants that are selling retail stuff,” he added. “It's just sometimes it's hard for us to convince the larger corporate players that [it] is a helpful thing.”
Nonetheless, Prince stresses the importance of Amy’s Place.
“I think that the concept of this is 100% needed… The thing that's exceeded my expectations the most is the consistency,” said Prince.
In the past, other nonprofit and volunteer groups had “sporadic” hours, Prince describes. So he was happy that Amy’s Place had continued to stay open and have consistent supporters.
Most of those consistent supporters are the cause for the friendly commotion on Tuesday afternoons.
The Golden Group, a short-term respite program hosted by Amy’s Place Program Coordinator Riley Heryford, runs during DSNW’s in-person caregiver support group.
Respite is “to grant a temporary period of relief” specifically for caregivers, as defined by Merriam-Webster.
The Golden Group offers socialization, games, and a way for people living with dementia to make meaningful connections.
“Having people who consistently come every week, and having that thing we were hoping for where they’re coming and seeing their friends and enjoying themselves, and having a place to tell stories…it is really awesome to see,” Heryford said.
Executive Director Judy Davis is able to hear and see the programming happen from a large office window in her office—a decision that was made accidentally.
“I was always looking at the cost, and I said ‘no, no, no the office doesn’t need a window,” she said. “I came in that one day, and he got this huge hole, and it was so enormous, and I couldn't [I thought] ‘there’s no going back.’ But, I’m so glad that he did, because I can look out and I can watch the respite that Riley does.”
From so many staff at Amy’s Place, they found themselves here because of their own experiences with dementia—making the dementia-friendly space even more special for them.
Arianna Beliso, the Project Coordinator at Amy’s Place, has three grandmothers who are currently living with dementia, or were previously living with dementia. Being close with her first grandmother who was diagnosed, Beliso saw all the changes her grandmother went through.
“It was just like it was just a really meaningful time for me to be there with her,” said Arianna. But even after she passed, I always wondered how I could have been a better support person other than just being there with her.”
With that, Beliso said having a community, even just a friend, can be powerful when walking the dementia journey—be it as a person or a person living with dementia.
“I'm just so happy that we have a community center where anybody could come in, whether they currently have, a spouse or a mom or dad, or friend who has dementia, and that they know that someone understands, or someone is willing to listen when their whole world is feeling chaotic or array,” she said.
Looking toward the future
Going back to the prevalence of dementia in the larger society, Shawn Monninger said this is just a new chapter for DSWN.
“Even though we've been an organization for over four …we're moving in a much bigger, more profound way at this point, because the need is much bigger and more profound now, after these decades have passed,” he said. “If they're not here because of someone in their family, they're here because of a friend.”
For the community, Amy’s Place offers various programs—including dementia-friendly events, educational sessions, respite, and support groups.
“Now we see that there is a need, now we're expanding our programs based on that need,” Heryford said.
For Chamberlin, walking into Amy’s Place is still a “pinch me” moment.
“I was just so flabbergasted that we had gotten to that spot, and it was just the most amazing feeling ever to see individuals come into the center and just have this look of relief and also appreciation that they were seen,” Chamberlin said. “I just feel really, really excited that it's continuing on.”
Looking back on the journey Davis believes Amy’s Place is exactly what it was dreamt to be.
“We wanted it to be a place where people could socialize, have coffee, and meet. The big table, when we purchased that big table to sit around and congregate, we've achieved.” she said. “The respite and just people feeling at home when they are coming in, we're achieving that.”
For Davis, opening Amy’s Place was her calling and why she was brought into the organization. Unfortunately, in early June she announced she will be relocating to Florida with her family. Her hopes for the future is for Amy’s Place to keep sustaining itself.
“We need the donations…it’s important to continue what we are offering and to grow whatever programs, or whatever the needs are in the community,” Davis shared.
The organization announced to its staff that Heather Carter will be replacing Davis in late July or early August.
“I am 100 percent confident that Heather's gonna do a great job…,” Davis shared. “ I am so excited about what she can do, and I'll always keep in touch and see the growth, for years to come.”