Board of Aldermen 11-26-2019 Page 5
who worked with us is open if any of you wish to meet with these students to hear their thoughts, they
are certainly open to facilitating that with you.
All of this work and all of the data that we collected resulted in a conversation with the students about
what we call “Signature Projects”. So Leila is handing a one-pager that gives you a sense of what they
thought would be projects to focus on. Mine Falls Park was the first one; because the Boys & Girls
Club is so close to Mine Falls Park, a lot of them walk through it, a lot of them play in it. They felt very
strongly about having that be a park that was safe for them and lighting seemed to be a theme in the
park. So in talking with Nick this afternoon, we brainstormed that perhaps some kind of a solar lighting
installation might support that suggestion and one of the advantages of Nashua participating in this
project is the connection with the Foundation for Health Communities which has access to funding
throughout the year so that we can begin to support having some of these initiatives actually come into
play. So that is an advantage of having the City participate.
The Rail Trail and Central Street was another focal area and when we looked at the data on the maps
these were kind of where clusters of places where both the students felt they could go and like to go but
they had some concerns about going. So those helped us to find these Signature Projects, so more
beautification. Another theme was more Police Patrols and Nick did explain this afternoon that there
are bike patrols on Mine Falls Trails so that was a positive.
Then finally the Ash Street and Ledge Street Pathway, again more Police presence and then picking up
trash. So the Police presence, the trash theme, the beautification those seemed to emerge as we
talked with the students more and more. And then one of the things that struck us was that they
wanted to see more field trios to Nashua areas so that they could have peaceful outdoor experiences.
That was significant to us because nationally there is a great concern that children don’t get enough
outdoor time, they have too much screen time. The average number of hours spent at a screen is
between 6 and 7 hours for children. That is a big concern to everybody across the sector of psychology
and educators and community leaders.
So that was really positive, and the Boys & Girls Club and the Recreation Department can certainly
work together, and we will work together to try to make that happen.
So moving down from the Signature Projects we have these Action Steps that we have shared with
Nick and the Boys & Girls Club Staff. These emerged from all of us talking together about what next
steps to take and so the meeting is coming up and then collaborating on the cleanups and the pop-up
library. These kinds of specific field trips and grant writing opportunities to try to implement all of these
ideas. What we find in doing this around the country is that children at this age, mostly it is the Middle
School, Upper Elementary Age that participates in this program. They tend to point out things that are
fairly easy to accomplish. Sometimes they involve just collaboration between departments or agencies.
Sometimes they involve a little bit of money but there’s not much expenditure or effort that needs to go
into making these things happen to help them feel like their voice has been heard.
We just want to make sure we acknowledge, before | turn it back over to Leila, Shay and Janail at the
Boys & Girls Clubs who were very supportive and helped us work with the students. The staff of the
Nashua Board of Alderman, Donna — super helpful; Library, Parks & Rec, Public Health and the Police
Community Service Departments. The National Park Service provided funding for the project. GP
RED provided technical assistance and the Foundation for Health Communities, Healthy People,
Health Places Plan and the Active Recreation Work Group are the overarching sponsors of this work.
So I'll turn it back over to Leila for the final “where we go from here” and then we’d be happy to answer
any questions.
Leila Melon So this just brief, just the “what do we do from here” “where do we go”. A couple of these
meetings that we still hope to have with the kids at the Boys & Girls Club, we will organize that to
happen. Being in this cadre of four other communities around the State with Foundation for Healthy
Communities, it is a link for each other, they are linked via e-mail, a lot of funding opportunities go out
via that way and they can talk to each other and ask questions and get support since they have all now
