City gets $1M Grant for Connectors

Project aims to improve community’s health by easing access to services

Nancy Bergeron

The city of Ruston has been awarded a $1 million grant by the Lincoln Health Foundation to expand the network of sidewalks and bike lanes that will connect to the Rock Island Greenway.

The award is the second such grant the city has gotten for the project. In September 2017, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana Foundation also gave the city $1 million for three miles of connectors that intersect the greenway at points in south Ruston.

“I think the biggest thing about (the Lincoln Health Foundation grant) is the fact that it’s leveraging the money we got from Blue Cross Blue Shield,” Mayor Ronny Walker said Friday.

Official announcement of the grant, along with a dedication ceremony for the first block of connector sidewalk, is set for 11 a.m. Thursday at Duncan Park, located at 1311 Arlington St.

Though the initial phases of the connector project targets improving access to health care and other services for south Ruston residents, the overall plan emphasizes healthy living and connectivity throughout the city, all via the greenway.

The Rock Island Greenway is a shared-use path that, when finished, will span the almost 6-mile length of the city along the old Rock Island railroad bed. The city’s vision is the sidewalk and paths will link neighborhoods to the greenway and afford residents easier walking or biking access to medical facilities, churches,, schools and businesses.

“All of a sudden we start connecting hospitals, doctor’s offices, the sports complex. All of a sudden we become a more connected community,” Walker said.

Norman Hanes, Lincoln Health Foundation’s chief executive officer, said the foundation was so impressed by the connector venture’s potential for improving health in the community that it was willing to break a two year freeze on funding new projects and consider the Ruston’s grant request. Committing to the grant, which will come in four annual disbursements of $250,000, “was a huge, huge decision,” Hanes said. “We’re stepping outside our funding freeze only because of the importance to Lincoln Parish. We look at the benefits of this as being outstanding.”

The nonprofit foundation mission is to improve health care and healthcare access by funding health-related initiatives, programs and services.

Part of the allure to the foundation is that the sidewalks and paths will make it easier to walk to several of the agencies located in south Ruston that the foundation funds, Hanes said.

“It is in our sweet spot as a foundation as to what we fund,” he said.

Hanes said the greenway connector project touches all the foundation’s interests: access to the agencies and programs it supports, access to medical facilities and the encouragement of physical activity.

“It’s a great thing,” Hanes said.

The grant is one of the largest single grants the foundation has made in its 22-year history.

The foundation, which was started with money from the sale of the former Lincoln General Hospital, agreed to go into its original founding capital to fund the grant. The foundation generally allocates about $1.5 million a year in grants. But with the new Ruston grant, that amount will jump to roughly $1.75 million for the next four years, Hanes said.

“It’s a major investment for us. It’s going into our corpus,” he said.

Alderwoman Carolyn Cage, who represents the district in which the first connectors are being built, said the connectors will “drastically improve the health of neighborhoods and of the entire community” by building a safe, easily available pedestrian transportation route.

According to figures provided by the city, more than 2,000 people live within a 10-minute walk, or 2-mile bicycle ride, of the recently completed section of the connector sidewalk along Vaughn Avenue.

The three connectors already in the works are Mississippi Street near the Historic Fire Station going east to Ruston Elementary School, about 1 mile; Line Avenue from near Adams to Farmerville Street, about three-quarters of a mile; and Vaughn Avenue from I.A. Lewis School to Green Clinic, slightly more than 1 mile.