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Dodge City, KS
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022
Project Category: Public art installations
Description: This project created murals in the downtown district reflecting the area's history and diversity.
San Francisco, CA
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: When the Florence Fang Asian Community Garden opened in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood in 2014, it focused on serving Asian immigrant elders and filled a need for green space and fresh food. This project expanded the garden, adding 3,000 square feet of gardening space and making it the second largest urban farm in San Francisco. The additional space allowed gardeners to try new techniques -- such as row planting -- that increased the garden's yields. Additionally, organizers upgraded the garden's compost system and set up beehives to help with pollinating crops. The larger harvest allowed garden organizers to distribute four tons of produce annually to local families in needs, including culturally relevant foods such as bok choy and Chinese chives.
Allen, TX
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019
Project Category: Micromobility enhancements/management
Description: To encourage older residents to become more active and use the local trail system, the City of Allen purchased six adult electric tricycles for the Allen Senior Recreation Center. Center members can check out the trikes to use when weather permits. The tricycles provide supplementary electric power to assist with peddling when needed, enabling users with varying mobility levels to ride them. To get the lending program started, City built a storage facility for the tricycles and offered a skills class for riders. Additionally, they provided helmets, orange safety flags and bike locks. Although motorized vehicles typically aren't typically allowed on Allen's nearby Cottonwood Creek Hike/Bike trail, the City has made an exception for the trikes.
Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects
Tacoma, WA
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: Many families in Tacoma struggle to access fresh, nutritious food. To allow residents to harvest vegetables in their own neighborhoods, Food is Free planted garden plots throughout the city. Organizers installed raised garden beds in residents' front yards, in tree boxes and in the public right-of-way along the city's sidewalks. Food is Free ensured the gardens met the City's code requirements. Each garden produces about 100 pounds of produce annually. Gardeners get to keep a fifth of their harvest, with the rest offered to residents during food share events held in a local park. In addition to increasing food access, project organizers say the effort helped participants -- including older adults -- become more engaged with one another.
Renton, WA
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017
Project Category: Engaging residents in vibrant public places
Description: To mark National PARK(ing) day, the City of Renton hosted a celebration downtown. Hoping to stimulate activity in the city's core and generate discussions about the use of public space, project organizers set up five parklets - small parks created in the footprint of street parking spaces. These became mini event spaces for the day, hosting live music, games of chess, interactive art projects, drum lessons, outdoor dining and people watching. Nonprofits and downtown businesses stepped up to host the parklets and event organizers passed out maps showing the locations of each parklet. To give visitors a reason to stroll the streets, the event featured vendor booths and food trucks. Organizers say the pop-up highlighted the need for downtown spaces for older adults to congregate. In 2020, lessons learned from PARK(ing) Day informed efforts to offer safe outdoor gathering spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. And in the years since Renton has continued to celebrate National PARK(ing) Day.
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