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DeRidder, LA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018

Project Category: Roadway/sidewalks/crosswalk improvement

Description: The City of DeRidder set out to improve walkability, allowing residents to reach cultural amenities and social opportunities on foot. They worked to install accessible sidewalks, paint crosswalk to make them more visible and add wayfinding signage downtown. The city's core is home to government offices, a public library branch, a theater and art gallery and a regular farmers market, as well as a pocket park and downtown pavilion.

Starkville, MS

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019

Project Category: Roadway/sidewalks/crosswalk improvement

Description: Community-based organization Keep Starkville Beautiful updated a busy transportation corridor to calm traffic, increase safety and make the area more pleasant. The organization repaired a crumbling retaining wall and added built-in planters and pollinator patch gardens. A local artist created a colorful pavement pattern in the intersection of Whitfield and Scales Streets. Keep Starkville Beautiful also made improvements to a bus stop, installing a new ADA-compliant seating and waiting area and adding an arbor framed by planters to provide shade. Local residents provided much of the labor for the upgrades during community work days.

Chicago, IL

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019

Project Category: Roadway/sidewalks/crosswalk improvement

Description: To call attention to rough conditions on Chicago's sidewalks and bike routes, the Recyclery Collective commissioned local artists to fill in potholes with mosaics. Project organizers engaged the community to select each installation site. Not only do the colorful mosaics beautify the neighborhood, they also make the pavement easier to navigate. Organizers hope the project brings people together and demonstrates the importance of navigable streets and sidewalks.

Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects

Annapolis, MD

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018

Project Category: Bikeability

Description: Organizers with Annapolis Arts District wanted to create a safer, more bikeable community. To improve the bikeability of the neighborhood, they added artistic bike racks. Additionally, they installed share the Road signs and painted sharrows on the pavement to warn drivers about cyclists sharing the roadway. Project organizers say the efforts helped restart stalled efforts to complete a bike master plan for Annapolis.

Annapolis, MD

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023

Project Category: Developing projects based on residents' priorities

Description: The center will translate materials on conflict management into Spanish and distribute to non-profits serving the Hispanic community, enhancing community inclusion and acceptance of individual differences.

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