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Greensboro, NC

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: Creativity as a Catalyst for Inclusion, a project of the Creative Aging Network, worked to create a community garden and outdoor classroom for community events. Assembling a team of volunteers and community activists, they cleaned up the grounds, built raised garden beds, created walking paths and planted native vegetation. A local artisan created custom benches for the garden, created from the wood of a fallen tree on the property. To bring people into the space, local artists led a series of workshops onsite. Project organizers say activities programmed for the garden are meant to be inclusive and appeal to people of all ages and abilities.

Juneau, AK

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: This project engaged volunteers aged 50 and older to help create a community garden that serves as a social hub, outdoor classroom and natural health club.

Luverne, MN

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2020

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: Project Food Forest installed three sculptural trellises at the Prairie Ally Outdoor Center. Home to the community's food forest, garden beds at the five-acre site feature edible and medicinal plants. To commemorate Luverne's agricultural history, artists constructed each trellis out of old farm and garden tools. Project organizers also added signs displaying the common and scientific names for plants in the forest, as well as two picnic tables. Located near downtown, the site is accessible by a popular biking and walking path. The forest is open to the public daily and the Outdoor Center offers guided tours and workshops onsite.

Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects

Anchorage, AK

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Engaging people in transportation options/safety

Description: Alaska Trails worked with Bike Anchorage to shape sustainable transportation in Anchorage. The two organizations educated residents about the city's Non-Motorized Transportation Plan, an effort to integrate bike, pedestrian and train networks into a multi-modal system. They also informed residents about Anchorage's Complete Streets policy, which aims to remake city streets to safely accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers and bus riders of all ages and abilities. In addition, Alaska Trails supported Safe Routes to School, an initiative that promotes walking and bicycling to school. This outreach effort included social media posts, print and television news coverage and a newsletter. Alaska Trails continues to work to encourage locals to use the state's trails and each year Bike Anchorage holds a Winter Bike Fest to promote cycling in the city.

Anchorage, AK

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022

Project Category: Park enhancements

Description: The Navy League Council created its Sea Services Memorial. The memorial is located at the USSAnchorageanchor site to honor the two ships of that name, as well as the Navy's role in Dutch Harbor during World War II. The Council refurbished an anchor onsite, improved landscaping and made accessibility updates. Organizers also installed storyboards describing each ship's historical significance.

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