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2022 AARP Community Challenge Grantee
Project Category
Public places
└ Community Gardens
└ Community Gardens
Residents at a Providence center for older adults faced limited access to fresh food and social connection. Youth staff revitalized raised garden beds with vegetables and herbs for meals and transformed the courtyard with flowers and benches. They also interviewed older adults and hosted cooking demonstrations to gather cultural recipes for a second edition of a graphic novel-style cookbook. The cookbook combines stories and recipes by refugees, many of whom are age 50-plus, in order to preserve their experiences and food traditions. The garden became a source of joy and nutrition while fostering intergenerational ties. "Recording personal experiences for the cookbook is validating... and will help preserve their stories and cultures," said a partner at a local women's care center.
Project description was created using generative AI and then reviewed for accuracy.
Project description was created using generative AI and then reviewed for accuracy.
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St. George, AK
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: On remote St. George Island, access to food is challenging. Grocery shipments arrive by plane, which are sometimes grounded due to inclement weather. This makes food insecurity a concern, especially among lower-income residents. Organizers with Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association hoped to help the community grow its own produce. They renovated a rundown greenhouse, adding a new door, equipment and raised garden beds. Local children contributed by creating a wooden sign for the space. Additionally, project organizers installed seating, creating a community gathering space. Organizers plan to continue to upgrade the greenhouse, which provides vegetables for congregate meals for community elders.
Lawton, OK
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2024
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: This project will create a community garden where Comanche elders can grow vegetables and flowers. Participating gardeners will plan, tend and harvest their plots and distribute their produce to the community.
Grand Rapids, MI
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: Long Michigan winters left older adults at Reflections Apartments isolated and unable to garden, a key source of connection and activity. Dwelling Place built an ADA-compliant greenhouse through five volunteer events, engaging many community members and local partners. The space extends the growing season and supports a seed-starting program led by residents. Older adults now plan to grow culturally relevant vegetables and share stories tied to gardening traditions, turning the greenhouse into a year-round hub for wellness and social connection.
Project description was created using generative AI and then reviewed for accuracy.
Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects
Providence, RI
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: Amos House, which serves unhoused and unemployed people and those living in poverty, developed a volunteer-managed garden to provide fresh ingredients for the organization's soup kitchen. Amos House installed four raised garden beds and two containers for growing herbs. The organization relied on labor from participants in its carpentry program and planted seeds donated by a local farm. Following construction of the 900-square-foot garden, Amos House recruited 20 volunteers age 50 and older to tend the garden. In the summer of 2019, the garden yielded produce valued at 6,500, which they used to prepare 15,000 meals. Residents of Amos House's shelter programs participate in gardening and harvesting, which project organizers say represented an important social activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Providence, RI
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2025
Project Category: Accessibility of amenities
Description: Community Libraries of Providence addressed a safety gap that kept some neighbors from participating in outdoor library programs. At Knight Memorial Library, the ramp and stairs leading to the lawn lacked secure handrails, making access stressful for older adults using canes, walkers or wheelchairs. The project installed new handrails along both sides of the accessible ramp and repaired the handrail on the street staircase, building on earlier accessibility improvements. A patron wrote that she had stopped attending evening Spanish classes because she was afraid of the stairs. The improvements reopened outdoor programs to neighbors with limited mobility and advanced the library's longer-term accessibility goals.
Project description was created using generative AI and then reviewed for accuracy.
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