AARP Grants Help Local Projects Boost Livability in Illinois

In western Illinois, the Adams County Health Department has a strong partnership with the local senior center, holding flu shot clinics and health education programs at the facility.

But making sure community residents—40 percent of whom are 50 or over—are aware of those offerings can be a challenge in the largely rural, almost 900-square-mile area near the Missouri border. To extend its reach, the Health Department is using a $20,000 AARP Community Challenge grant to launch a smartphone app that will provide notifications about events such as flu clinics, as well as vital information in emergencies.

“We wanted to make sure that everybody had a way to get notified, mostly in a disaster,” says Emily Andrews, the county’s health education supervisor.

The app can provide information such as where cooling centers are located during periods of excessive heat, or alerts about boil water orders, Andrews notes.

The department is one of eight Illinois recipients of 2024 AARP Community Challenge grants, totaling just over $60,000. The grants fund projects aimed at improving public spaces, housing, transit and civic engagement, among other goals. Nationally, AARP awarded $3.8 million in grants for 343 projects this year.

Candice Trees, 71, is among the AARP Illinois volunteers who reviewed the grant requests. Trees was especially taken with the notification app, having herself experienced severe weather when a windstorm hit her city of Springfield, downing power lines and a cellphone tower. Older adults sometimes aren’t prepared for disaster scenarios, she says.

AARP Illinois received close to 100 grant applications this year, says Ellen Acevedo, who is director of volunteer engagement and mobilization.

Navigating safely

In the Chicago suburb of Maywood, a $2,000 AARP grant is also benefiting residents.

The Maywood Public Library District is installing a bicycle repair station for the many library patrons who travel there on two wheels. There are grandparents who accompany their grandkids, students who attend the nearby high school and adults with lower incomes for whom bikes are their primary form of transportation, says Daniela Martinez, the library’s interim director. People also bike from the Illinois Prairie Path and a nearby commuter rail station.

The bicycle repair station will include a variety of common maintenance tools and an air pump. It’s a small thing but a big benefit for the community, she says. “We want [residents] to see that the library is another asset to them, and that we’re here to help,” Martinez says.

Two other grant recipients this year are also focused on helping Illinoisans navigate their communities safely on bikes.

In the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, the Northwest Hispanic Chamber of Commerce received $2,500 to conduct bike audits of a multiuse path to identify any safety or accessibility issues. The city of Jerseyville also received $2,500 to perform bike audits throughout town.

This year’s other AARP Community Challenge recipients:

• Black Cornerstones received $2,500 to conduct walk audits to identify potential visibility, sidewalk and crosswalk improvements in the Calumet Heights neighborhood in south Chicago.
• The nonprofit Community A-to-Z received $16,360 to provide access to books, food and art by installing 26 Little Free Libraries, Little Free Pantries and Free Little Art Galleries in Princeton and the greater Illinois Valley region.
• ConnectLakeCounty, a nonprofit, received $12,000 to provide low-income older adults in North Chicago, Waukegan, Round Lake and Zion with affordable internet plans. Participants will also receive a free laptop or tablet, as well as digital literacy training.
• The nonprofit Community Health and Emergency Services Inc. received $2,500 to conduct walk audits to identify multiple locations to install benches in communities in the southern part of the state. ■

Susan Berger, a Chicago-based journalist, writes about medical research and other issues.

More on Livability

• AARP Livable Communities Map
• AARP Livability Index
• AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities
  
  What Is a Livable Community?