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Lemmon, SD

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: Staff at the Lemmon Public Library saw a need to reduce social isolation in town, particularly among older residents. To address this, they set out to improve the library's public gathering space. Project organizers created a new bakery cafe, purchasing folding tables with stacking chairs, an acrylic pastry cabinet, a cake cover and cupcake display, tablecloths and pump pots for coffee. Since the cafe's opening, the library has used new tables and chairs at hundreds of events and the space has accommodated pop-up shops. The opportunity to bake for the cafe led some residents to launch their own baking businesses and one retired baker was inspired to plan a workshop for women starting businesses. Sparked by the success of the cafe, library staff have since pursued other opportunities to expand community space, including providing library patrons with an outdoor area for reading and gathering.

Herington, KS

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: The pocket park in downtown Herington lacked seating, so grant funds were used to purchase benches and an accessible picnic table. The seating was a catalyst for further investment in the pocket park, including shade coverings, a drinking fountain, mural, and landscaping.

Castleton-on-Hudson, NY

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: The Village of Castleton-on-Hudson regularly hosts a Repair Cafe event, where volunteers repaired any item brought to them, if possible. One problem: the event takes place on the second floor of a Village Hall, which has no elevator. This posed an accessibility issue -- locals often complained about climbing the building's difficult staircase. To solve this, the Village moved its Repair Cafe to Noyes Engine House. They also worked to activate a vacant lot next door, installing a community bulletin board, benches and planters onsite. The improvements support wider efforts to revitalize the village's downtown, with the goal of drawing more people to the central business district.

Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects

Seattle, WA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024

Project Category: Digital navigation skills

Description: This project will provide digital literacy classes to Latino immigrant workers. This will give lower-income residents access to computers and improve their technology skills, allowing them to access job opportunities.

Seattle, WA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Engaging residents alongside thought leaders in problem solving

Description: Seattle's city government invited technology specialists, designers and older adults to take part in a weekend hackathon. Participants brainstormed ways to use public data and technology to understand the built environment and improve the lives of Seattle's older adult residents. The City offered cash prizes to teams with winning ideas. Team Pandora for Streets took home the top prize for their map that used unusual crowdsourced data to evaluate the urban environment, such as street-level smells and noises. Other winning projects used crowdsourced bus stop data to evaluate accessibility and visualized needed repairs to Seattle's sidewalk network. Part of the Age-Friendly Seattle initiative, the civic hackathon reflects Seattle's commitment to becoming a livable community for people of all ages and abilities, Candice Faber, the city's civic technology advocate, said.

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