Hi-tech Western Union for seniors

Chris and Kelly Brooks and partners Rich and Susan Iazzetta have started a Calabasasbased business that delivers e-mail messages to elderly residents who live in assisted living facilities.

FamGram.com allows the seniors, many of whom are suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia, to stay in touch with loved ones via the Internet.

After customers log onto the FamGram website and set up an account, they are allowed to send a message, a photograph or a child's drawing that is delivered electronically and printed out for the recipient in the nursing home.

"What we have found is many residents in homes just don't use computers past a certain age. They stop. We are trying to fill that gap," Brooks said.

FamGram is a more expedient way to keep in touch with family members in homes, said Brooks, who is head of west coast syndication for CBS Television.

"Think of it as an Old West telegram that is delivered to their room, but instead of telegraph lines and Morse Code we use the Internet and color printers," he said.

For each dollar in fees it receives from the sender, the company gives 5 cents to Alzheimer's research and 20 cents to the nursing home to cover the costs of administering and printing the messages.

Rich Iazzetta is head of west coast syndication for the Walt Disney Company and he and Brooks are former coworkers at Paramount Pictures.

The idea for the enterprise came from Iazzetta's 12yearold daughter, who began using e-mail to stay in touch with a pen pal and suggested that the same method could be used to help the elderly in nursing homes communicate with their families.