YOU DON'T HAVE TO COPE ALONE: Baker Senior Center Naples gets grant money

The Naples Baker Senior Center is a facility where people who live with or care for people with Dementia come to socialize. The mental health services available wouldn't be possible without grant funding.

Jaclynn Faffer is the CEO and President of the center.

"We received $150,000 for our Dementia Respite Program and we received $110,000 for our geriatric mental health program," she said.

These programs help people process grief through short term, goal directed psychotherapy, and offer music therapy, helping cognitive function.

"This is a grant we've had for quite a while from the state, and it increased this year. It doubled from $75,000 to $150,000 and this allows people who can't afford the fee for the Dementia Respite Group to be scholarshipped in," she said.

The Baker Senior Center in Naples provides support groups to about 2,000 elderly people and their caretakers, all for a membership of $100 a year.

Sharon Knickle's husband uses the center and she is his caregiver.

"It's God sent really, because I don't know what I would've done without the center," Knickle said.

Faffer said people who use the center often struggle with relationship problems, mild anxiety, and depression.

"And you have to try to cope with that yourself... but when you come here, you don't have to cope alone," Knickle said.