Anchorage, AK

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2025

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: This project will add accessible garden beds, benches, and signage to its community gardens. This will support older adults with mobility challenges and provide education on food security and local food production.

Cleveland, OH

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority saw an opportunity to revitalize an abandoned volleyball court behind one of their public housing buildings, creating a space to bring residents together and address social isolation. Using input from the residents of Riverview Tower, an apartment building for low-income older adults, they created a garden where residents can grow their own fruits and vegetables. The garden has places to sit and features accessibility features for residents with mobility challenges. Additionally, the space includes sensory areas, which allow visitors to smell, touch and taste herbs, fruits and berries.

Opa-locka, FL

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: For Opa-Locka residents, the closest supermarket is more than a mile away, making fresh produce in this low-income community hard to come by. The Opa-Locka Community Development Corporation conducted an extensive community engagement process to determine what kinds of fresh produce the community needed most. They then responded by planting 14 fruit trees -- as well as herbs -- in the common area of a multifamily residential development. The CDC also installed lighting, benches and other amenities in the space, allowing residents to gather there.