Treasured Stories, Poetry and Song l Together We Create

Two Port Macquarie projects have won funding under initiatives to boost the arts and culturalsector impacted by COVID-19.

It is part of more than $650,000 in state government funding through Create NSW delivered

to 70 independent artists and small to medium arts and cultural organisations across four

categories.

Creative communities project coordinator Lisa Hort was successful with a $8,387 grant to

deliver a weekly program over 12 weeks designed for people living with dementia.

The Treasured Stories, Poetry and Song – Together We Create project was a unique

initiative that combined technology, historical images, shared moments, meaningful

engagement, and stimulating conversation—specially designed for people living with

dementia and their carers or support persons.

For this project, I engaged the creative expertise of Graeme Atkins, a local and well-known

musician and songwriter with lived experience of dementia, and internationally recognised

poet Gary Glazner, founder of The Alzheimer's Poetry Project in Brooklyn, NY.

Together, we invited residents living with dementia and their carers from the Port Macquarie

Hastings community to join us on a twelve-week journey of curiosity, creativity, and

connection—one hour per week. The best part was that participants didn’t even need to

leave the comfort of their homes, as the sessions were delivered online. Together, we

chatted, imagined, and created stories, poems, and songs inspired by historical images and

objects kindly shared by the Port Macquarie Museum.

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