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Bainbridge Island Senior Community Center (2022) Print
2022 AARP Community Challenge Grantee
Project Category
Transportation
└ Public or private transit access
└ Public or private transit access
This pilot project aims to help older adults travel events at the local senior center, as well as shopping trips, medical appointments and cultural activities. Over a 12-week period, the senior center worked with volunteer and contracted drivers to provide transportation on weekdays. The center deployed its passenger bus, as well as a transit van and personal vehicles, to provide on-demand rides. Organizers say lessons learned during the pilot will inform plans for a permanent transportation program.
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Palmer Township, PA
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023
Project Category: Public space activation
Description: The project will turn an open space adjacent to the public library into a community gathering area with benches, a sculpture and a garden paying tribute to Native American culture.
Madison, WI
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021
Project Category: Trails
Description: The spot where a popular pedestrian and bicycle path connects with Leopold Community School has needed repairs for years. The Cannonball Path's entrance was cracked and overgrown with weeds. To make the gateway to the path more welcoming, volunteers laid new concrete, planted native perennials alongside the path, added interpretive signage and installed solar lighting. New benches give people a space to sit and to appreciate the sculpture that adorns the trail entrance. The artwork depicts a fiddlehead fronds -- an homage to the local ecology. Today, the space gives educators the opportunity to teach students about local wildlife and also acts as a drop-off location for parents escorting their children to school. Project organizers say the improvements are part of community-wide efforts to give people more resting spaces along local trails.
Louisville, KY
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023
Project Category: Housing Choice Design Competitions
Description: This project will host a design competition to select and purchase at least three pre-approved plans for accessory dwelling units, which will then be available to the public free of charge.
Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects
Port Orchard, WA
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018
Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility
Description: The Homes for All village is a tiny home community, which offers transitional and temporary housing for Port Orchard's unhoused residents. However, the community lacked communal space. To fill this gap, the County set out to designed and build an indoor gathering space. Kitsap County Commissioners received a donated 32-foot trailer, which they converted into a community kitchen for food prep and distribution. Volunteers worked to convert the trailer, adding an electric range, oven, microwave, sinks and refrigerators. The new space includes an adjacent room for dining, community meetings and group activities. Project organizers say the space helps residents build relationships with one another.
Seattle, WA
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017
Project Category: Engaging residents alongside thought leaders in problem solving
Description: Seattle's city government invited technology specialists, designers and older adults to take part in a weekend hackathon. Participants brainstormed ways to use public data and technology to understand the built environment and improve the lives of Seattle's older adult residents. The City offered cash prizes to teams with winning ideas. Team Pandora for Streets took home the top prize for their map that used unusual crowdsourced data to evaluate the urban environment, such as street-level smells and noises. Other winning projects used crowdsourced bus stop data to evaluate accessibility and visualized needed repairs to Seattle's sidewalk network. Part of the Age-Friendly Seattle initiative, the civic hackathon reflects Seattle's commitment to becoming a livable community for people of all ages and abilities, Candice Faber, the city's civic technology advocate, said.
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