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The FAF (2023) Print
2023 AARP Community Challenge Grantee
Project Category
Public places
└ Public space activation
└ Public space activation
The grant will support LOT 323, a creative placemaking pop-up park that features music and arts and crafts events for residents aged 50 by partnering with senior housing and senior centers, as well as assisted living facilities.
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Kuna, ID
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017
Project Category: Public space activation
Description: Kuna has a large parking lot in the center of its downtown that goes largely underused for most of the year. To spark the community's imagination, the City and Idaho Smart Growth hosted the Park for a Day event, which turned the lot into a pop-up plaza. The event featured live music, a food vendor and sketches illustrating ways the space could be permanently transformed. Attendees also contributed their own designs for the parking lot. Suggestions included using the space for a series of short-term, recurring events, such as an Oktoberfest, a Christmas village, a renaissance fair or themed dance nights. The City went on to explore several ideas from the pop-up event, including paving the parking lot with solar panels and installing green stormwater infrastructure to sustain landscaping at the site.
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.
Skowhegan, ME
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024
Project Category: Public space activation
Description: This project will install directional signage and replace a deteriorated chain-link fence flanking an access trail, keeping walkers safely away from a steep river embankment. The town will also clear overgrown brush, plant flowers and install benches to create a pocket park.
Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects
Camden, NJ
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021
Project Category: Public space activation
Description: A vacant lot on North Camden's waterfront was unappealing and attracted illegal dumping. The Camden Community Partnership decided to give the lot new life by turning it into a gathering space for residents of all ages. As part of larger efforts to activate the space, the Partnership commissioned a local artist to create a mural onsite. The artist asked older adults questions about their community and used their responses to inform the mural's design, which volunteers helped paint onto a nearby building. Since its completion, project organizers say the mural has served as a model for other local public art projects, with three additional murals in the works. The new greenspace has also tied into other community building work, including development of trail along the Delaware and Cooper Rivers.
Camden, NJ
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022
Project Category: Roadway/sidewalks/crosswalk improvement
Description: To help people reach Cramer Waterfront Park on foot or by bicycle, this demonstration project tested several street safety improvements. Organizers added crosswalks and temporary curb ramps to a nearby intersection. They also swapped bike and parking lanes in an effort to separate cyclists from vehicle traffic. The Camden Community Partnership collected data to evaluate the traffic calming interventions, which they will use to inform permanent infrastructure upgrades.
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