Music evokes emotions that resurrect old memories. Musical aptitude and appreciation are two abilities Alzheimer’s patients retain. Saturday, Bedford Care Center in Picayune held an Alzheimer’s Awareness Day event to raise money for a piano for the patients.

November is national Alzheimer’s Awareness month. The disease affects over 5.4 million people in America.

“The patients here love having people come in to entertain. They all love to dance and we thought the piano would be a great way to make them smile,” Cachandra Williams, Bedford admission coordinator, said.

At the event, tents lined the Bedford parking lot offering fun activities for visiting families, children, and Bedford patients. Some of the activities included a quarter mile walk, fun jump, multiple food vendors, face painting, live DJ, massage table and a couple of dogs available for adoption from the SPCA.

“This was just a great opportunity for the patients to get out and enjoy a beautiful day while raising money for something that is beneficial to them,” Williams said. “The patients also got to interact with other people attending the event, which is something some of them do not get to do very often.”

Participants were able to purchase food, including hot nachos and sweet potato casserole, walk around, see the Picayune Fire Department’s fire truck and pull the horn and then get a massage from Moore Chiropractic staff.

Music can bring emotional and physical closeness, alzheimers.net states. Singing is engaging and music can shift moods, manage stress and stimulate positive interactions, which is what the staff at Bedford hopes will transpire with the addition of a piano to their care center.

Throughout the day, kids jumped on the Spongebob themed Wet N Wild Fun Jump and participated in the quarter mile walk with Bedford patients.

Also, participants had a chance to enter a raffle to win multiple prizes throughout the event. Williams said that whenever a Bedford patient won a prize it “was the greatest thing in the world. Their smiles light up the sky and that was what we wanted from this event.”

Even though it was the first time Bedford Care Center held an Alzheimer’s Awareness Day event, Williams said it was so successful staff cannot wait to do it again next year.

During the event, Bedford staff sold Alzheimer’s Awareness shirts, which had the “Go Purple with a Purpose” logo. They raised $358 to go toward the piano for the care center. Williams and the rest of the Bedford Care Center staff want to thank everyone that came out and all of the sponsors for raising awareness of Alzheimer’s and contributing to the newest addition to Bedford.