See More Projects Like This One

Roswell, NM

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: Roswell often experiences daytime temperatures well over 112 degrees Fahrenheit. The tourist town also welcomes more than 200,000 tourists each year. This project set out to help visitors and residents alike walk in downtown Roswell despite the brutal heat. Over the course of several years, Maitreet Roswell collected plastic bottle caps and container lids -- part of an effort it called Bottlecaps to Benches. Project organizers then sent a tractor trailer full of the caps to a recycling plant in Indiana, which sent back 30 benches made from recycled plastic. Maitreet Roswell then installed the benches throughout the town's commercial district, allowing pedestrians to sit and recover from the heat.

Central Falls, RI

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: This project will weatherize a community pavilion, making it welcoming in rain and colder weather. The work will enable Progreso Latino to host more activities, particularly for older adults.

Port Orford, OR

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: To revitalize Port Orford's downtown and make it more walkable, the City installed benches with built-in planters along Main Street. Sites chosen for the new benches included the local food co-op, a quilt shop and a Norwegian restaurant. A construction crew from a nearby correctional facility built four bench-planter combos. High school students made plaques to recognize the inmates for their work and AARP for funding the building supplies. After installation, the local arts council set up the community's traditional holiday crab-pot tree next to one of the benches and added festive decorations to its planter. Project organizers report downtown property owners are thrilled with the improvements and the City plans to continue adding seating to Main Street.

Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects

Fort Lawn, SC

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: This project installed ADA-compliant picnic tables and a gazebo with porch-type swings in the town's mini park, as well as benches for its walking track. Franklin County Master Gardener Volunteers also created concrete walking paths at both locations.

Matthews, NC

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023

Project Category: Public art installations

Description: The project will install a mural along a local pedestrian and bike trail to commemorate the Crestdale community, the oldest Black community in North Carolina, as well as LED lighting, ADA-compliant benches and signs.

LEARN MORE AND STAY INFORMED

Find articles and resources about making communities more livable for people of all ages

people icon

Download or order free publications from AARP Livable Communities

download icon

Sign up for the free, weekly, award-winning AARP Livable Communities eNewsletter

mail icon

Don't see your community listed?

LEARN HOW IT CAN JOIN THE NETWORK

Connect with your AARP State Office

AARP has offices in all 50 states as well as in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

AARP South Carolina State Office

1201 Main Street
Suite 1720
Columbia, SC 29201
United States

Phone: 866-389-5655
Fax: 803-251-4379
Email: [email protected]