East Providence, RI

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2025

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: Older adults identified limited access to affordable, healthy food as an ongoing challenge, driven by transportation barriers and high rates of nutrition-related chronic illness. East Bay Community Action Program responded by creating an accessible community garden at the local Senior Center, where older adults helped shape what was grown and how the space was used. The project paired gardening with hands-on cooking demonstrations and a shared meal that used garden produce and prepared dishes. One participant wrote that they had started eating better and adding more vegetables to their diet. The garden also strengthened ties with schools and youth programs, supporting continued intergenerational involvement and establishing a lasting space for food access, learning and social connection.

Project description was created using generative AI and then reviewed for accuracy.

Mobile, AL

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: When the Mobile Medical Museum added a medicinal garden to its campus, the space included a a wooden boardwalk. However, older adults and people with disabilities struggles to navigate the boardwalk. This project made the garden ADA-compliant. Organizers removed the boardwalk and repaved and widened a crumbling concrete path leading to the garden. The garden -- which features medicinal herbs -- hosts community events, as well as art and horticultural therapy classes for people with disabilities and their families.

Delaware County, OH

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Community Gardens

Description: To give older adult residents of an affordable housing complex a space to gather, SourcePoint and Age-Friendly Delaware County created an accessible community garden. Volunteers installed raised beds to enable gardeners to work without needing to kneel down. Additionally, they laid an ADA-complaint crushed gravel path, added accessible benches and erected an aluminum fence around the space. Today, St. Michael's Community Garden hosts programming for gardeners and non-gardeners alike, including healthy cooking classes. Project organizers say the garden has helped combat social isolation, and senior housing residents now grow produce in their own backyard, which helps reduce their grocery bills.