The big picture
St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church, located at 18300 Upper Bay Road, Houston, is launching on April 29 what officials said was Texas’ first Respite for All program in an effort to provide weekly relief for caregivers of dementia patients across the Bay Area.
The program, which church officials call Apollo Respite for All, will be Texas’s first chapter and one of 50 similar models the national Respite for All Foundation has helped launch nationwide.
On Tuesdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Apollo Respite will offer caregivers a few hours of free time while volunteers watch their loved ones as they play games and socialize with other dementia patients.
“Everybody’s wearing the same name tag, everybody’s doing the same activities,” said Sean Steele, associate rector at St. Thomas and the program’s coordinator. “It’s just that the people who don’t have dementia have all been trained to be sensitive, to create an environment that is friendly and welcoming to people with dementia.”
Volunteers will guide dementia patients through a rotating schedule of music, movement, crafts, trivia, meals and a game of balloon volleyball. The program concludes with a dementia-friendly worship service and giving of the Eucharist.
“A person who is nonverbal because of dementia can say the Lord's Prayer because it's using different neural pathways,” Steele said.
The backstory
The vision for Apollo Respite began in June, when Rector Mike Stone looked to see whose needs in the community were not being met.
“It’s in some ways a living death,” Steele said. “You’re watching your loved one die right in front of you.”
Nearly 13 million Americans are expected to be living with Alzheimer’s by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Steele said when a family member starts developing dementia, families often withdraw to preserve their loved one’s dignity.
“For example, people will say, ‘My husband was an engineer at NASA for 40 years, and everybody knew him as this brilliant man and I don’t want people to see him like this,’” Steele said.
Zooming in
Jody Gillit, a caregiver and program volunteer, said she’s been waiting for a program such as Apollo Respite to come along for a long time.
Gillit’s 80-year-old father lives with a mixed diagnosis of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Her father started showing signs of dementia at age 65, when he began forgetting small things, such as how to get to a restaurant the family had visited regularly for 30 years.
After relocating her parents from Victoria to the Houston area in 2018, Gillit moved a few houses down the street.
Because neither of her parents drives now, Gillit said she takes more time off work now to take care of her parents than she ever has. Gillit said she looks forward to how Apollo Respite will provide for her father—and the relief she hopes it will offer her mother.
“He keeps asking, ‘Where do the men have coffee around here?’” she said. “But even when he finds that group, he can’t remember next time when it is or who was there. So having a place that he can go and have coffee in a ‘new town,’ to him, is going to be amazing.”
What else?
While private adult day programs can run upwards of $150 a day, Steele said, Apollo Respite is asking for a $25 weekly donation and scholarships will be available.
“We never want money to be a reason someone doesn’t seek care,” Steele said.
The church received initial seed funding from the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, covering startup costs like dementia-safe chairs and program materials. Steele said they’re now fundraising for scholarships to ensure long-term sustainability.
Steele said his church “sees love as a verb,” and Apollo Respite is them living their mission to love their community.
For Gillit, who discovered Apollo Respite the very first Sunday she visited St. Thomas, the program is an answered prayer.
“When Mike ... mentioned this program, I just about passed out, I was so excited,” Gillit said. “This is something I’d been hoping for and couldn’t find.”
- 18300 Upper Bay Road, Houston
- www.sttaec.org/respite
