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City of Eastport (2018) Print
2018 AARP Community Challenge Grantee
Project Category
Public places
└ Park enhancements
└ Park enhancements
The City of Eastport wanted to give visitors to its new park an interactive, low-impact activity, suitable for people of all ages. So they installed a music part onsite. The space features several permanent, outdoor musical instruments, including a drum set and a yantzee and duet -- both of which are mallet instruments similar to a glockenspiel. The improvements are part of larger remediation efforts to transform a former landfill on Passamaquoddy Bay into Cony Park, a four-acre outdoor space.
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See More Projects Like This One
Pollock Pines, CA
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022
Project Category: Park enhancements
Description: This project set out to create a park, where Pollock Pines residents can gather. Following community engagement efforts, organizers with Community Economic Development Association Pollock Pines decided to highlight local history through the greenspace's design, paying tribute to early settlers, the Old West, the Pony Express, wagon trains and the gold mining and logging industries. To give residents a place to exercise, they also incorporated fitness equipment specifically designed for older adults.
Tolland, CT
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021
Project Category: Park enhancements
Description: To give older adults in Tolland an outdoor space to gather and spend time, the Tolland Conservation Commission created a new park. The Commission worked with landscape architecture students at University of Connecticut to design Wanat Senior Park, a 13-acre area with accessible woodland trails, space for stargazing, a wheelchair-accessible meadow trail and meditative labyrinth. Engagement with older adults, including a design charrette and guided site tour, informed plans for the park. Volunteers of all ages planted vegetation and helped install hardscaping. The park features a pollinator garden, ADA-compliant benches and a variety of native plants. Public art -- including a sculpture of a heron and a sundial -- welcome visitors to the space.
New Milford, CT
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018
Project Category: Park enhancements
Description: To create social opportunities for people of all ages, the Town of New Milford added benches and game top tables along the walkway to the Young's Field Park. Town employees installed the tables, which can host chess and checkers games. Project organizers say they hope the tables encourage intergenerational activities in the riverfront park. Today, teens from a New Milford High School after-school club use the table for regular games with players from the New Milford Senior Center.
Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects
Bowdoinham, ME
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: The Town of Bowdoinham provided elevated planters to six residents who, because of disabilities, could not maintain traditional, in-the-ground gardens. Members of the local Masons Lodge constructed the raised beds and delivered soil to each recipient. To showcase the planters, the Town hosted a community meal featuring local produce, which included a presentation about the benefits of raised beds. In addition, the Town founded a garden club, which meets monthly.
Chelsea, ME
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: Older adults in Chelsea had few accessible spaces for social connection or healthy activities, leaving many isolated. The project transformed a schoolyard into an intergenerational garden with eight wheelchair-accessible raised beds, a convertible bench and a canopy. Residents and students planted, harvested and shared produce, which supplied the local food bank and monthly luncheons. Donations and repeat visits showed strong community engagement. Future plans include expanding raised beds and adding a permanent structure for year-round use.
Project description was created using generative AI and then reviewed for accuracy.
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