SKIPTON Building Society in Sale has held out its hand to local dementia group, Dorothy’s Memory Café.

The group opened in May this year to honour the memory of Dorothy, the wife of local man, Peter Bennett, who had lived with dementia for many years.

The café had originally struggled to get off the ground due to costs of events and ensuring support was available each week.

The group applied for local funding , but needed to make their name known across the community as bigger groups had also applied.

Following a conversation between the customer adviser at Skipton, Cath Hughes and a regular customer, Cath and branch manager, Sam Strapps went down to the venue.

The building society decided to step in and printed flyers for the group, displayed them in the branch and handed them out to customers. As a result, the application was successful.

The café provides a place for those living with dementia to take part in various activities, including word searches, colouring and a very popular sing along.

Skipton also provided song books and a monitor so they can play films from yesteryear.

Margaret Argyle, who set up the group said: "The church were very involved in caring for Dorothy, so a few of us decided to take a dementia training course - I knew we had to do something so I set up this group.

"The Building Society have been excellent, we're really grateful for their help. They have pointed us in the right direction and visit us on several occasions to show their support."

The branch will continue to support Dorothy’s Café by volunteering to support the regular Tuesday sessions.

Sam Strapps said; “We are very proud of being able to support such a great local group. These small groups make such a big positive difference to the lives of people living with dementia, and their families. Often run by volunteers, the team behind them really are unsung local heroes – and we’re proud to help out in any way we can.

“The team at Sale branch are working hard with Skipton to become a dementia friendly organisation. We are a safe place to visit for people with concerns about dementia, either for themselves or their families. And we’ve been blown away to be able to see first-hand the dedicated work Dorothy’s Memory Café does to make living with dementia that little bit easier.”

Dorothy’s Memory Cafe, at The Lounge of United Reformed Church in Montague Road, is open every Tuesday afternoon from 1:00pm until 3:00pm.