See More Projects Like This One

Little Falls, NJ

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2025

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: This project will create a vibrant outdoor gathering space at the Old Town Hall with age-friendly benches, flower gardens, shaded seating areas, and accessible walking paths.

Shepherdstown, WV

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2026

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: The town will pilot a temporary, car-free downtown plaza featuring movable seating, shade and planters. The project will test how a pedestrian-only space can support rest, events and social connection for residents of all ages.

Roswell, NM

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Public space activation

Description: Roswell often experiences daytime temperatures well over 112 degrees Fahrenheit. The tourist town also welcomes more than 200,000 tourists each year. This project set out to help visitors and residents alike walk in downtown Roswell despite the brutal heat. Over the course of several years, Maitreet Roswell collected plastic bottle caps and container lids -- part of an effort it called Bottlecaps to Benches. Project organizers then sent a tractor trailer full of the caps to a recycling plant in Indiana, which sent back 30 benches made from recycled plastic. Maitreet Roswell then installed the benches throughout the town's commercial district, allowing pedestrians to sit and recover from the heat.

Nearby AARP Community Challenge Projects

Hyde Park, VT

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Accessibility of amenities

Description: Elsa French Park is a new pocket park featuring lilacs bushes and gardens planted on the grounds of an historic home. This project ensured the accessibility of the space for residents and visitors of all ages and ability levels. The Village of Hyde Park installed two ADA-accessible picnic tables, along with an accessible pathway with a ramp and detectible edges for visitors with disabilities. Project organizers say the improvements helped lay the groundwork for ongoing development of the site, which they envision as an important gathering space in a community that lacks a central town square. In addition, the Village has repurposed the house on the property to house municipal offices and a community meeting space.

Worcester, VT

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2026

Project Category: Public space improvements to support recovery after extreme weather events

Description: Flood-damaged parking, trail sections and signage along a popular community trail will be repaired. The work will restore safe, flat access so residents, especially older adults, can walk and relax by the river.

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