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St. Petersburg Housing Authority (2024) Print
2024 AARP Community Challenge Grantee
Project Category
Public places
└ Community Gardens
└ Community Gardens
Inflation and food deserts left many older adults in St. Petersburg struggling with nutrition and isolation. The housing authority revitalized its community garden with six raised beds, shaded seating and irrigation. It also hosted workshops on sustainable gardening, budgeting and healthy cooking. Residents helped plant and harvest produce for a community pantry, creating opportunities for exercise and social connection. The project improved access to fresh food and reduced stress, with plans for expanded programming. One participant said, "The garden is important to me because it has everlasting memories... I would love to see this garden flourish again."
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.
Luverne, MN
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2020
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: Project Food Forest installed three sculptural trellises at the Prairie Ally Outdoor Center. Home to the community's food forest, garden beds at the five-acre site feature edible and medicinal plants. To commemorate Luverne's agricultural history, artists constructed each trellis out of old farm and garden tools. Project organizers also added signs displaying the common and scientific names for plants in the forest, as well as two picnic tables. Located near downtown, the site is accessible by a popular biking and walking path. The forest is open to the public daily and the Outdoor Center offers guided tours and workshops onsite.
Scarborough, ME
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022
Project Category: Community Gardens
Description: Older adults in Scarborough face challenges staying active and managing heating costs on fixed incomes. Project GRACE expanded three community gardens, adding 15 new beds and growing over 800 pounds of produce for local food pantries. It also hosted a "Snug It Up" workshop for 75 older adults, offering weatherization tips, free DIY supplies and emergency fuel assistance for dozens of households. The gardens fostered social engagement and healthy eating, while the workshop helped residents prepare for winter. "I applaud the essential work... that helps our community to stay comfortably warm and snugged up this winter," one attendee wrote.
Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects
St. Petersburg, FL
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017
Project Category: Roadway/sidewalks/crosswalk improvement
Description: The Florida Consumer Action Network Foundation temporarily transformed a street into a route capable of safely accommodating pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles all at once. The network saw the pop-up project as a way to build support among residents and business owners for Complete Streets. On a Sunday in October, they closed Central Avenue to vehicle traffic and installed four parklets. The parklets featured outdoor bookshelves, planers and seating, as well as a space to play bocce ball. In addition, project organizers added curb extensions at an intersection to slow traffic and narrow the crossing distance for pedestrians. While no vehicles were allowed on the road during the demonstration, the reconfiguration demonstrated pedestrian safety, even with traffic reintroduced. In 2019, the city approved a plan to redesign streets over the next two decades to accommodate cars, pedestrians and cyclists.
St. Petersburg, FL
AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2019
Project Category: Innovative home maintenance, repair and support services
Description: The Dream Center works with low-income families throughout Pinellas County, focusing on improving safety and livability for older adults in their homes. This project made home repairs and accessibility modifications to 25 houses, including widening doors and installing grab bars, chair lifts, wheelchair ramps, handrails and toilet seat lifts. Project organizers say these repairs shielded families from facing potentially expensive fines for code violations. The Dream Center also provided food assistance and hygiene items to older adults. Today the Center continues to provide home modification assistance through its Adopt A Block program.
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