Hebron, NE

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Trails

Description: The Thayer County Walking Coalition aims to provide local residents with opportunities to walk and bike. This project improved trails in the City of Hebron. To create places for walkers to socialize, the coalition added seating areas with shade trees, benches and trash cans. Project organizers installed new signs guiding people to local attractions, including the World's Largest Covered Porch Swing and the site of a World War II POW camp.

Newark, NJ

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2025

Project Category: Trails

Description: Older adults in Newark often navigate streets and transportation systems that were not designed with aging in mind, especially those without cars who rely on walking or bicycling for everyday needs. Their lived experience is frequently missing from planning discussions, even as safety and independence become more fragile with age. New Jersey Bike and Walk Coalition addressed this gap by creating welcoming spaces where older adults could learn about mobility options and speak directly about what works and what does not. A Senior Mobility Fair drew hundreds of older adults to try mobility tools, connect with resources and share stories about moving through the city. The project also partnered older adults with youth to record interviews, videos and portraits, including perspectives from residents with visual impairments. City leaders attended and heard these accounts firsthand, helping ground future mobility conversations in real experiences.

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

Madison, WI

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Trails

Description: The spot where a popular pedestrian and bicycle path connects with Leopold Community School has needed repairs for years. The Cannonball Path's entrance was cracked and overgrown with weeds. To make the gateway to the path more welcoming, volunteers laid new concrete, planted native perennials alongside the path, added interpretive signage and installed solar lighting. New benches give people a space to sit and to appreciate the sculpture that adorns the trail entrance. The artwork depicts a fiddlehead fronds -- an homage to the local ecology. Today, the space gives educators the opportunity to teach students about local wildlife and also acts as a drop-off location for parents escorting their children to school. Project organizers say the improvements are part of community-wide efforts to give people more resting spaces along local trails.