Delivering Comfort and Purpose

A Season of Caring Podcast

Rayna Neises, your host, interviews Tonja Moon. Tonja is a mother, business
owner, geriatric advocate, healthcare marketing strategist, and certified dementia
care specialist. With over 15 years of leadership experience in the hospice and
geriatric mental healthcare areas, her background is broad and dynamic. After
seeing how baby dolls and stuffed animals helped her grandmother, Ruby, who
had dementia, Tonja started The Grand Baby Project. The organization delivers
baby dolls to assisted living and memory care communities, free of charge,
bringing comfort to those who receive them. Tonya shares the following insights:

• [2:54] When you put a doll in the arms of someone with dementia, their entire face lights up, and it takes them to a happy place, even if they never had children of their own.
• [9:50] One of the hardest things to learn is to meet them where they are. It is
  not about us, but instead about them.
• [11:30] Giving them a purpose goes a long way.
• [12:03] Staying in the moment can make such a big difference.
• [13:13] The disease can be harder on the family than it is on the patient.
• [17:15] Sometimes, we have to change our hobbies due to the limitations of
  caregiving.
• [21:02] Connect with Tonya at www.TheGrandBabyProject.org or on the
  Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/grandbabyproject. Ways to be a
  part of the mission:
  • Purchase a baby doll for a loved one
  • Donate items via the group’s Amazon Wishlist
  • Purchase a baby doll to be given to someone
  • Purchase diapers and other baby items to be distributed
  • Sew or knit baby items and send them to be distributed