The Making Memories Festival was launched in 2021 to recognize Alzheimer’s Los Angeles’s 40th anniversary of serving the highly diverse community of Los Angeles County. We intentionally created this event using music – featuring well known, local artists – to reach diverse, low-income, low literacy families who are generally diagnosed later in the disease course. These communities often experience heavier disease burden, face greater barriers to accessing diagnosis and quality care, and have poorer outcomes.

Our primary goal is to break down stigma and raise awareness that dementia is not a normal part of aging, that it is a disease like heart disease or diabetes, and that there are things that can be done to help both the person with the diagnosis and their family and friends who often face the burden of providing care. Alzheimer’s Los Angeles provides direct services, free to all families, regardless of income or immigration status.