South Salt Creek
Community Development Project

Improving Neighborhood Health and Vitality

Strong and healthy neighborhoods benefit everyone. Our community development projects began as an outgrowth of our annual outdoor health and wellness festival, Streets Alive!  Between 2011 and 2023, Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln organized and sponsored Streets Alive!, a one-day event that promoted good nutrition and active living.   For the event, we collaborate with medically underserved neighborhoods that serve as co-hosts for Streets Alive! to take health and wellness education and resources throughout 2 miles of neighborhood streets to encourage people to walk or bike the route.  The event welcomes thousands of visitors each year and showcases the host neighborhood.  Streets Alive! is on hiatus in 2024 to give us time to refresh, reinvent, and reimagine the festival. Change is good! .  

In 2017, we began working with the neighborhoods that hosted Streets Alive! to identify and implement projects that could enhance neighborhood health through improved access to physical activity opportunities, walkability, and safety.  We collaborated with the host neighborhoods, Lincoln Parks and Recreation, community organizations, and other sponsors to make a lasting positive impact through a community development project that would not only benefit the host neighborhood but add to the beauty, safety, and well-being of our entire city. 

F Street Tunnel Revitalization
Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln, collaborating with the South Salt Creek Community Organization, Lincoln Parks & Recreation, Park Middle School, neighborhood residents, and Burlington Northern Railroad identified a neighborhood project that could improve the safety and walkability of the South Salt Creek neighborhood. 

For the South Salt Creek neighborhood, the F Street Tunnel offers one of the only safe passages across train tracks on 3rd Street. Lighting in the tunnel was insufficient; the ceiling was peeling and leaking; the mural inside was faded, the retaining walls were crumbling, and the landscaping around was overgrown. All these factors make for an unsafe passage for kids walking to Park Middle School and for residents walking in the neighborhood. 

The community development project included these improvements:

• Updated the lights so the tunnel could be brighter and better protected.
• Scraping, repainting and sealing leaks in the ceiling.
• Repainting the inside walls of the tunnel with a mural that reflects the heart and diversity of the neighborhood done by a local artist, Micah Mullins.
• Repairing and rebuilding crumbling retaining walls, adding new walkways and steps.
• Tearing out overgrown landscaping around the tunnel and planting new full-sun, low-water plants. We will engage the neighborhood residents through the South Salt Creek Community Organization, Park Middle School and nearby churches to adopt the landscaping and keep up the seasonal maintenance.

The completion of the project was celebrated at the Mayor's news conference in May of 2022.  Watch the video to view all of the before and after project pictures.

Thanks to our Project Sponsors
We are very grateful for the generous support of our wonderful corporate and community sponsors, WalMart, the Lincoln Community Foundation, and Burlington Northern Railroad, and Lincoln Parks & Recreation whose funding is helping improve the health and safety of the South of Downtown neighborhood through this Community Development Project.  Thanks also to Cascade Cabinets & Flooring, our volunteers, and AmeriCorps interns who provided clean up and other project support.