A welcoming day community where older adults gather, connect, and thrive.
Designed to feel like home: warm, familiar, and full of life.
EngAGE Beverly is a not-for-profit day community on Chicago's South Side, currently in its founding year. We are building a home where older adults will gather, connect, and belong, with thoughtfully designed daily gatherings for those navigating memory changes, and community membership for older adults at every stage of the journey. When we open publicly, members will be known, valued, and belong.
Designed to feel like home, not a facility
EngAGE Beverly was created as a nonprofit community for those seeking a more personal, comfortable, and connected alternative to traditional adult day programs.
Residential-Style Setting
Our space is thoughtfully designed within a neighborhood home, offering a familiar, calming environment that feels comfortable and easy to navigate.
Relationship-Centered Care
Consistent, caring staff build genuine relationships with each member, creating trust, comfort, and a strong sense of belonging.
Small, Intentional Community
A limited number of members allows us to provide individualized engagement and create a connected daily experience for each of our unique, individual members.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
What a day feels like
Each day at EngAGE Beverly is thoughtfully shaped around the people in the room: calm, engaging, and full of the moments that make life meaningful.
Gentle Start to the Day
Members are welcomed by name into a familiar home, greeted by the same friendly faces, and invited to settle in at their own pace. Coffee or tea, a quiet conversation, time to look at the morning paper or watch the birds at the feeder.
Arrival is the most disorienting moment in a day, especially for those navigating memory changes. We design every welcome to be unhurried, predictable, and warm.
Meaningful Work, Shared
Activities at EngAGE Beverly are real, not arranged. Members take on purposeful roles around the house: clearing leaves with a child, kneading bread, reading aloud and making music together. Meaningful work, shared.
Our days draw on the evidence about what protects memory, supports wellbeing, and builds belonging across generations.
Connection & Community
Members eat together at the kitchen table, share stories from a long life in Beverly, and spend time with the children who pass through our days. Friendships build naturally, the way friendships build in any home, between people who see each other regularly and matter to one another.
Strong social connection is among the most consistent protective factors in cognitive aging. We are designing for the kind of belonging that holds up over time, not just for the length of a visit.
Rest and Reset
Quiet rooms, comfortable chairs, the front porch or back patio when the weather is right. Members rest when they need to, alone or alongside someone, without ever feeling they have to keep up.
Rest is not idle time. The research on dementia care is clear that overstimulation, even from pleasant activity, can increase distress and fatigue. We build rest into the day on purpose.
Growing Toward More Ways to Belong
Not everyone needs a daily gathering, and that is okay. As EngAGE Beverly grows beyond our founding year, we will offer additional ways for older adults and their families to connect with our community, including workshops, educational resources, caregiver support, and neighborhood gatherings. There is more than one way to belong here.
As we grow, community membership will include:
Classes and activities: a calendar of offerings that may include yoga, meditation, gentle movement, art, gardening, book discussions, and game gatherings, shaped by what the community wants and needs.
Workshops and learning: gatherings on topics relevant to aging well, navigating memory changes, and supporting a loved one through the journey.
A place at the table: community members are part of the EngAGE Beverly family, welcomed, known, and valued, whether they attend daily or visit occasionally.
Community membership opens publicly in 2027.
Why We Do What We Do
This work is personal.
EngAGE Beverly began as a search for our own father, father-in-law and grandfather after his Alzheimer's diagnosis in 2024. When the options around us did not fit, we decided to build something that would. “Pops” will be our first Daily Care Member.
