Morristown Student's Nonprofit Donates Therapy Devices To Local Dementia Patients

MORRISTOWN, NJ — A Morristown student's nonprofit will be the center of an intergenerational effort to help dementia patients.

Impactful Changemakers, a nonprofit created by Delbarton School junior Christian Barravecchio, will be donating 20 therapeutic animatronic pets to senior citizens suffering from dementia.

Christian launched the nonprofit with his brother and sister, Michael and Alexa, in an effort to raise awareness of cognitive disorders and invest in combating them.

He said that their mission began around the time they saw their grandfather succumb to dementia. Christian began volunteering at a local nursing home and walking a service dog around to greet residents suffering from cognitive issues.

“I saw how powerful even brief moments of companionship could be, especially for residents with dementia. What stayed with me was that the comfort worked, but it wasn’t consistent or scalable,” Christian told Patch. “Wanting to volunteer more consistently, I began bringing my sister Alexa with me to help walk the service dog and visit residents. Together, we saw how strongly people responded to simple presence and companionship… What started as a volunteering experience became a shared family effort with clearly defined roles.”

Impactful Changemakers’ most recent endeavor is in partnership with Ageless Innovation’s Joy for All Companion Pets, a company that creates lifelike furry companions that have been proven to give dementia patients comfort.

These devices, which can be either a dog, cat, or bird, respond to the user’s voice and touch with realistic sounds and behaviors.

“Rather than replacing human interaction, these companions extend it. They provide consistent comfort when staff, volunteers, or family members cannot always be present,” Christian said. “Research already supports their positive effects on mood and anxiety, which aligns with our goal of creating compassionate, evidence-based impact.”

Christian and his team were able to raise the funds to purchase the fluffy companions with the help of community fundraising, outreach to family and friends, and support from local businesses and sponsors.

On Monday, a special donation event will be held at The Renaissance nursing home in Lincoln Park at 2 p.m. Twenty Joy For All Companion Pets will be given to the home’s residents, and additional ones will be donated to another home in the spring.

Impactful Changemakers is currently conducting its own research on the effect that these companions have on dementia patients in an effort to better understand the benefits and hopefully improve upon them.

Once graduating from Delbarton, Christian wants to continue to learn how technology, data, and systems design can be “used for social good.”

“Looking ahead, one of our main goals is to raise awareness about loneliness among cognitively-impaired seniors and to expand deliveries into the communities surrounding our future schools, allowing each of us to continue this work wherever we are,” he said. “Long-term, we hope to build a model that other students can replicate in their own communities.”