Macon-Bibb, GA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2025

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: This project will transform a vacant lot near public transit into Spirit of Macon Park, a safe, attractive, multi-purpose green space. The park will offer wellness programs and activities.

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.

Rock Hill, SC

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: Garden classes for older adults were in high demand, but without an on-site space, participants lacked hands-on experience. The city transformed a courtyard into a pollinator garden by clearing invasive plants, preparing soil and installing beds, a bench and educational signage. Lifelong Learning participants helped plant and maintain the garden, which now enriches classes and fosters community engagement. One volunteer even signed up as a future instructor, showing how the project sparked new connections and expanded opportunities for experiential learning.

Project description was created using generative AI and then reviewed for accuracy.