AARP Grants Help Transform Tennessee Communities

Earlier this year, Georgia Shropshire, 85, noticed that the kitchen floor in her home of more than 30 years was sagging—a leaking water heater was rotting the wood underneath.

“She’s not able to walk in that part of the kitchen or use the bathroom that’s adjacent to it because she’s worried that the floor might fall through and she’d go through it,” says Kayla Dodson, program director at the Mooresburg Community Association.

The nonprofit is fixing Shropshire’s floor with the help of a $2,500 AARP Community Challenge grant. The funds are paying for supplies that volunteers—many with home-building experience—are using to repair and modify homes for residents 60 and older in rural Mooresburg, about 50 miles northeast of Knoxville.

The Mooresburg Community Association is one of five Tennessee organizations that received 2024 national AARP Community Challenge grants, totaling $53,583. Two additional entities received grants of $10,000 each from the AARP Tennessee state office.

“What we like to see is tangible results and a quick impact in the community,” says Mia McNeil, AARP Tennessee state director.

The AARP Community Challenge grant program funds local projects to improve public spaces, housing and transit, among other goals. Nationally, AARP awarded roughly $3.8 million in grants for 343 projects this year.

In Mooresburg, volunteers with the nonprofit delivering free meals to people’s homes noticed safety and accessibility issues, such as broken porch steps.

Meeting needs

Other Tennessee grants this year are supporting digital literacy, estate planning, caregiving assistance and access to healthy foods.

The YMCA of Middle Tennessee is using a $14,083 grant to offer twice weekly office hours this fall at the Northwest Family YMCA in Nashville. Anyone who is a YMCA member can bring their laptop—or use one in the facility’s computer lab—and get help with social media, fraud concerns or any digital issue, says Roy Brown III, executive director. Computer science students from Tennessee State University and other historically Black colleges and universities in the area will run the office hours.

Northwest Family YMCA will also use the funding to offer three lunch-and-learn sessions for members 50 and older that will focus on telehealth and health care technology, online estate planning, retirement planning and financial literacy.

In the city of Jackson in western Tennessee, the Regional Inter-Faith Association is using a $10,000 grant to support its produce delivery program. During the spring, summer and fall, the nonprofit distributes fresh fruits and vegetables to nearly 150 residents of two senior public housing communities.

These communities are in food deserts where it can be difficult for residents to access or afford fresh produce, says Lisa Tillman, 63, RIFA’s executive director. The deliveries also offer a chance for residents with mobility challenges to socialize, Tillman says.

Other 2024 grant winners in Tennessee are:

• Mustard Seed Inc. will use a $10,000 grant to provide computer training classes for older adults at its South Memphis Adult Career Transition Center.
• Community Legal Center, in Memphis, is using a $15,000 grant to offer monthly free legal clinics at community and senior centers for low-income older adults to assist with estate planning.
• The city of Pikeville is using its $12,000 in funding to create a mural next to its Main Street Stage to honor the Trail of Tears, the arduous journey of Native Americans who passed through Tennessee during their forced relocation in the 1800s.
• Foster 180 is using its $10,000 grant to provide parenting classes and other resources for grandparents in Wilson County, east of Nashville, who have become the primary caretakers for their grandchildren—often because of addiction, child abuse or other trauma.

Carina Storrs, a New York–based journalist, covers aging, health policy, infectious disease 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?