Miami Beach, FL

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Inclusive civic engagement efforts

Description: While Miami Beach is home to many LGBTQ families, the stories of older gay couples go largely untold. Miami Beach Gay Pride Inc. created the Legacy Couples Project to tell the love stories of 14 older, queer couples who were at the forefront of the fight for equity and fairness. Project organizers commissioned portrait-style photographs, hour-long audio stories, on-camera interviews and a curated selection of personal artifacts. The audio stories, which a team multi-generational LGBTQ interns produced, were featured at two local museums and are now permanently archived at HistoryMiami.

Opa-locka, FL

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: For Opa-Locka residents, the closest supermarket is more than a mile away, making fresh produce in this low-income community hard to come by. The Opa-Locka Community Development Corporation conducted an extensive community engagement process to determine what kinds of fresh produce the community needed most. They then responded by planting 14 fruit trees -- as well as herbs -- in the common area of a multifamily residential development. The CDC also installed lighting, benches and other amenities in the space, allowing residents to gather there.