Thursday, June 11 – Parks and Health

9:45-10:00 AM             Connect to Zoom

10:00-10:10 AM           Welcome & Introduce Dr. Frederick Foote — Doug Osborne

Doug Osborne, M.A., works as a Health Educator at the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC). He is President of the Sitka Cycling Club and a League of American Bicyclist League Certified Instructor. Since 2004 Doug has been promoting walking and biking as an economical and environmentally responsible way to simultaneously meet needs for transportation, physical activity, and fun … all in one.

10:10-11:00 AM          The Green Road Project: Healing Wounded Warriors via Nature — Dr. Frederick Foote, MD

Frederick Foote, M.D. (CAPT, MC, USN, ret.)  a retired military physician, implemented holistic medicine programs for Wounded Warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center from 2000-2017. He is project officer for the Green Road Project (the nation’s largest wild-type healing garden — www.greenroadproject.org).

From 2010-2017, a public-private partnership developed the Green Road Project, the nation’s wild-type healing garden, at the Naval Support Activity/ Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda MD (www.greenroadproject.org). This talk will describe the Green Road and its significance for healing via nature, particularly in Veteran populations

11:00-11:10 AM               Chat Room ‘Green Road Project’  — Doug Osborne

Introduce Maeve Nevins-Lavtar — Doug Osborne

11:10 AM-12:00 PM           Healing Parks in Outdoor Spaces (AK example) — Maeve Nevins-Lavtar, BS

Maeve Nevins-Lavtar, ASLA, began her career as a professional designer in 2005 with a foundation in mountain resort and community landscape architecture with the distinguished international design firm of Hart Howerton, Ltd. Since then, she has built a diverse portfolio ranging in scale from a commemorative “Blue Star” garden to Alaska’s first public “Intergenerational Health and Healing Park”. Several of her northern projects have received national attention, including earning a reputation in her home town of Anchorage, Alaska as a “crisis project manager”, successful at strategically rehabilitating complex sites after traumatic situations, such as an earthquake-damaged town center, flood-damaged trail corridors and failed pedestrian bridges. Since 2012, she has efficiently managed over 50 Municipality of Anchorage park and trail projects, implementing community-driven ideas from conceptual design through construction. Her work can be seen throughout the Rocky Mountains Western U.S., Alaska and most recently, globally, as Maeve has been volunteering as the Design Director and Gold Star Delegate for a humanitarian project with the Tragedy Assistant Program (TAPS International), conceptualizing a new Women’s Empowerment Community Center in Iraq. Maeve holds a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from Colorado State University and is a graduate of the Alaska Humanities Forum Leadership Anchorage program. Maeve is currently a board member with the Alaska Chapter of Landscape Architects and volunteers as a steep skiing and mountain bike coach in her free time.

Maeve’s inspiration for designing healing-centric landscapes comes from the loss of her brother, SFC Liam J. Nevins who was a U.S. Army Green Beret killed while serving in Afghanistan on Sept. 21, 2013. Liam and Maeve spent their youth exploring the mountains of New England and later moved to Colorado. Raised by their single mother, all three siblings inherited her creativity, as reflected in Liam’s cherished paintings and Maeve’s unique landscape designs. After returning from deployments, Liam would share inspirational stories from the people and places that he had visited in the Middle East. His passion for helping others globally has become Maeve’s guiding beacon, as she has gracefully refocused her grief into creating healing landscape designs both locally and abroad.

Please join our speaker, Maeve Nevins-Lavtar, as she takes us on a journey designed to increase park use and physical activity in neighborhoods through the planning, design and construction of a variety of unique “Healing Parks and Outdoor Spaces” in Alaska. She’ll explore projects from her last eight years of public service with the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) Parks Department, including a case study of Anchorage’s Folker Park, which was a highlighted project, along with other MOA park projects, as a recipient of the 2020 Alaska Community Service Award for Health. You’ll gain insight into successful design strategies that could be employed immediately to safely increase physical activity as the Covid-19 pandemic encourages more people to utilize neighborhood parks, trails and public lands.

12:00-12:15 PM           Wrap up Day 3 — Review Today, Preview Tomorrow, Chat Room — Doug Osborne