Brazos Valley association wins EPA award for support of active aging

The Brazos Valley Council of Governments (BVCOG) has received one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging awards. These awards recognize outstanding community planning and strategies that support active aging and smart growth, thereby improving the quality of life of older residents.

EPA recognized the council with a 2007 Commitment Award for its efforts to create new, mixed-use developments in the Wolf Pen Creek corridor through its Brazos Valley Building Healthy Communities Coalition. In addition, the council’s Agency on Aging created a Senior Transportation Program to provide door-to-door rides to senior centers, retail stores and health care facilities for older residents.

The BVCOG was among six other winning communities and government agencies from around the country to receive awards. Two categories of awards were presented. The Commitment Award recognizes communities that have developed and begun to initiate a specific plan to implement smart growth and active aging principles. The Achievement Award is presented for overall excellence in building healthy communities for active aging.

Smart growth involves designing neighborhoods that have shops, offices, schools, churches, parks, and other amenities near homes to give residents and visitors the option of walking, bicycling, taking public transportation, or driving as they go about their business. By adopting smart growth principles, communities can design places that increase mobility and improve quality of life for older adults.

EPA’s Aging Initiative program spearheads the multi-agency active aging effort, which was developed in partnership with the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Council on Aging’s Center for Healthy Aging, the National Blueprint Office and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, through its Active for Life program.