Join Trees Atlanta for an inspiring virtual session featuring Michele Ritan as she shares the remarkable story of the East Decatur Greenway. Discover how a once-blighted brownfield site was transformed into a thriving community greenspace through the power of local engagement, creative partnerships, and resource collaboration.
Michele will dive into her journey of mobilizing neighbors, university students, non-profits, and federal partners to bring this ambitious vision to life. Additionally, Trees Atlanta’s Forest Restoration Manager Madison Cummiskey and EPA Environmental Engineer Camilla Warren will share insights into why local and federal organizations prioritize collaboration with community leaders. They’ll also provide actionable tips for leveraging resources to bring positive change to your own neighborhood.
This is a unique opportunity to learn from passionate environmental advocates and explore the best practices behind successful community transformation. Don’t miss out!
Biking is an exciting way for kids and teens to stay active, explore their neighborhoods, and have fun with friends. But riding safely is just as important as knowing how to pedal. Check out these top tips to help youth ride smart and stay safe!
Gear Up for Safety
Helmet First! A helmet isn’t just cool—it’s essential. Make sure it fits snugly and is worn level on the head.
Bright Clothing Rocks. Neon, bright colors, or reflective gear helps others see you, especially during dawn or dusk.
Know the Rules of the Road
Ride in the Right Direction. Always bike with the flow of traffic, not against it.
Follow Traffic Signs and Signals. Just like cars, bikes need to obey stop signs, red lights, and other road signals.
Use Hand Signals. Show drivers and others where you’re going with clear hand signals for turning or stopping.
Be Aware of Your Surroundings
Keep Your Head Up! Watch for cars, pedestrians, potholes, and even animals.
No Distractions. Save the headphones and phone scrolling for after your ride.
Stay Visible
Use a white front light and a red rear light if riding when it’s dark or getting dark. Reflectors on bikes and backpacks are a great addition too!
Ride Where It’s Safe
Stick to bike lanes, quiet streets, or trails when possible.
For younger riders, sidewalks can be safer, but always be mindful of pedestrians.
Check Your Bike Before You Go
Tires. Are they pumped up and ready to roll?
Brakes. Make sure they stop smoothly.
Chain. It should be clean and securely in place.
Buddy Up
Riding with a friend or group is not only more fun but safer too. You’re more visible when biking with others.
Respect Others on the Road
Be courteous to drivers, pedestrians, and other cyclists. Sharing the road makes it safer for everyone.
Teaching youth these biking safety habits early helps them build confidence and independence. Whether biking to school, the park, or a friend’s house, a safe ride is always the best ride!
Let’s empower young riders to explore their world safely on two wheels. 🚴♂️✨
Biking is not only a great way to stay active and reduce your carbon footprint, but it’s also an enjoyable way to explore your community. Whether you’re commuting, riding to school, or simply enjoying a leisurely ride, safety should always be your top priority.
Here are some essential tips to ensure a safe biking experience:
1. Wear a Helmet
A properly fitted helmet is your best defense against head injuries. It should fit snugly, sit level on your head, and cover your forehead without obstructing your vision. A helmet can make a significant difference in the event of an accident.
2. Be Visible
Make sure drivers, pedestrians, and other cyclists can see you. Wear bright or reflective clothing, and equip your bike with front and rear lights, especially if you’re riding in low-light conditions or at night. Being visible helps prevent accidents.
3. Follow the Rules of the Road
Bicycles are considered vehicles, and riders are required to obey traffic laws. Ride in the same direction as traffic, stop at red lights and stop signs, and use hand signals to communicate your turns. Staying predictable and adhering to road rules helps keep everyone safe.
4. Stay Alert
Always be aware of your surroundings. Watch out for cars, pedestrians, potholes, and other potential hazards. Avoid distractions like using your phone or listening to music through headphones while riding. Staying focused allows you to react quickly to any situation.
5. Check Your Bike Before You Ride
Before hitting the road, do a quick inspection of your bike. Check the brakes to ensure they’re working properly, examine the tires for any signs of wear or low pressure, and make sure the chain is clean and in good condition.
6. Ride Predictably
Avoid sudden swerves or stops that might confuse drivers or other cyclists. Signal your intentions clearly, and ride in a straight line whenever possible. Riding predictably helps others on the road anticipate your movements.
Safety is a Shared Responsibility
By following these tips, you’re doing your part to create a safer environment for all road users. Whether you’re an experienced cyclist or just getting started, a little preparation and awareness can go a long way toward ensuring a safe and enjoyable ride.
Let’s work together to make our streets bike-friendly and safe for everyone. Happy riding!
For more bike safety tips or to learn about cycling programs in the City of Decatur, visit decaturga.com/biking
Recommit to Your Routine This Monday to Reduce Stress
Stress might feel like a part of life, but it’s often called a “silent killer” due to its negative effects on physical and mental health. This Monday, take charge by reconnecting with activities that help you stay active, balanced, and in control of your stress.
A full, busy life is a blessing, but it can also be overwhelming. You’re not alone—two-thirds of Americans report feeling stressed, with money and work being top triggers, according to the American Psychological Society. Even small disruptions, like a late night or missed workout, can throw us off balance. But there’s good news: research shows that intentional movement and mindfulness practices can significantly reduce stress.
Move Your Body to Calm Your Mind
Exercise: Exercise is a proven stress-buster. Staying sedentary can increase stress levels, while movement can boost your mood, promote relaxation, and release feel-good endorphins. The Mayo Clinic highlights the mental health benefits of regular exercise, from improved sleep to a greater sense of calm. Even short bursts of movement—like a quick walk or stretch—can make a big difference.
Qigong and Tai Chi: Looking for something low-impact yet powerful? Try Qigong on Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for a gentle movement practice that connects your mind, body, and energy. Or join the Tai Chi/Qigong Beginners Class on Wednesdays at 12 p.m. to enhance strength, flexibility, and balance in a calming environment. Both classes take place at the Decatur Recreation Center.
Take a Walk to Recenter
Walking is one of the easiest ways to combat stress and improve overall well-being. It’s also a great way to connect with your community.
Wednesday Walks: Meet us outside the Decatur Recreation Center for a 2-3 mile walk around the neighborhood. It’s a perfect midweek reset. Walks start at 9 a.m. (May-September) and 10 a.m. (October-April).
#MondayMile: Walk off stress by joining the Monday Mile! It’s a simple, social way to get moving—just grab a friend or coworker and walk a mile to kick-start your week.
Center Yourself with Yoga and Meditation
Yoga and meditation provide a calming way to reset your mind and body while releasing stress. These practices help increase flexibility, improve focus, and enhance overall well-being.
Flow Yoga: Ease into your week with this gentle practice linking movement and breath. This class includes flowing sequences and slower, held postures focusing on alignment, flexibility, and balance. Join us Tuesdays at 10 a.m.
Deep Stretch Yoga: Find balance and release tension with poses held for longer periods to relax muscles, joints, and connective tissue. Suitable for all levels—just bring a yoga mat and a blanket or large towel. Thursdays at 10 a.m.
Both Flow Yoga and Deep Stretch Yoga take place at the Decatur Recreation Center.
This Monday, commit to a routine that makes you feel good inside and out. Whether it’s yoga, Qigong, walking, or a simple stretch, make space to move, breathe, and rediscover your balance. Your mind and body will thank you.
Over the past two months, dedicated volunteers have teamed up with native plant professionals to make significant strides in revitalizing Glenn Creek Nature Preserve. These efforts are helping to restore the preserve’s natural ecosystem and support native wildlife, ensuring its continued beauty and ecological health for years to come.
A Flourish of Native Plantings In an inspiring show of community collaboration, volunteers planted over 340 native plant species during two recent weekend events. These plants, representative of Georgia’s Piedmont region, were purchased from local Atlanta-area nurseries with generous donations from Decatur Heights and Glenwood Estates neighbors.
The planting was organized with guidance from the Intown Native Plant Society, whose members provided a detailed planting plan, including species lists, locations, and maps of designated areas. Copies of the plans were shared with the City’s Urban Naturalist Allison Ericson to ensure alignment with the city’s ecological goals. Volunteers from Decatur Heights, Decatur High School, Glennwood Estates, and the Wylde Center worked together under the direction of the Intown Native Plant Society to complete the plantings.
Invasive Plant Removal: A Critical Step In addition to adding native species, the team tackled the preserve’s non-native invasive plants, such as Wisteria, Liriope (monkey grass), and English ivy. Guided by two plant professionals, volunteers removed or cut down invasive vegetation. To further benefit the preserve’s ecosystem, the cuttings were intentionally left on-site to serve as resources for birds and insects.
Creek Clean-Up In response to recent flooding near a home on Fairview, volunteers also cleared invasive vegetation and debris obstructing the creek’s flow. This effort not only improved water movement but also enhanced the preserve’s overall ecological health.
Community Collaboration at Its Best The Glenn Creek Nature Preserve project underscores the power of collaboration among neighbors, students, and professionals to make a tangible difference. With the support of local donations and the expertise of the Intown Native Plant Society, the preserve is on a promising path toward ecological restoration.
Stay tuned for updates as these efforts continue to transform Glenn Creek Nature Preserve into a thriving habitat for native plants, birds, and insects while providing a beautiful, natural space for the community to enjoy.
The holiday season makes exercising a bit more difficult: it’s cold, you’re on the road, there’s cookies everywhere…but that doesn’t mean you need to temporarily abandon your fitness routine. In fact, there are many ways to stay active during the holidays that don’t involve going outside at all.
A home workout has tons of benefits, like saving you time and money and giving you more privacy and flexibility. Plus, a home workout is also a great way to involve your family and friends. So when the turkey is in the oven and the football game is on commercial break, try fitting in a few minutes of movement. You’ll be surprised at how good it can make you feel.
This Monday, learn all the different ways you can work out indoors with our list of low-impact exercise ideas appropriate for all ages and ability levels.
Indoor Walking
Up your step count with some indoor walking. Try going through the living room, up and down stairs, or taking a few laps in your home or apartment hallway. Not at home? Not a problem. When you’re out getting groceries for the holiday meal or at the mall picking up gifts, try going around the store a couple extra times for extra cardio.
Yoga
Yoga is a great activity during the holidays for a few reasons: it keeps you active, calms you down, and gives kids something to do. Explore some of these family yoga sessions, or carve out your own time for self-care with few minutes of simple chair yoga.
Kitchen Workouts
Preparing for the holiday festivities typically requires a lot of kitchen time, but when your vegetables are roasting in the oven or your sauce is thickening on the stovetop, you’ll have a few minutes to sneak in a quick kitchen workout. Counter-top pushups, stove squats, and lateral pan raises can give you a pretty thorough full-body workout.
Habit Stack
The idea behind habit stacking is simple: add a new behavior to your daily schedule by “stacking it” on top of an existing habit. So, if you’re making coffee in the morning, do a few sets of jumping jacks while it brews; or if you’re watching television as a family, do a couple of push-ups each commercial break . The possibilities are endless.
Body weight exercises
Bodyweight exercises, also known as calisthenics, are beneficial to people of all ability levels and can be done inside with no equipment and very little time – which is at a premium during the holidays. Check out these useful bodyweight exercises that you can do anywhere.
It’s almost Thanksgiving and many of us are busy finishing up projects at work, traveling to see family, or planning to cook for the big day. Make the time this Monday for some pre-holiday physical activity!
Here are some quick ideas, for all fitness levels, to get your heart pumping when you have a limited amount of time.
Low-Intensity – Do a Monday Mile! Take the family dog and fit in 2,000 steps (a mile). It’s great for your heart, bones, and mood. Getting moving will also boost your energy levels, not to mention, help you digest!
Medium-Intensity – Play Ball! If there are kids and teens around or merely willing and able adults, grab a football, a soccer ball, or a Frisbee, and play outside. You’ll be getting some cardio and having fun.
High Intensity – Try High-Intensity Interval Training (H.I.I.T.) for the Holidays! Take over the living room and do some H.I.I.T. for 20 minutes. Need a suggestion? Try some lunges, squats, jumping jacks, and push-ups. Do each exercise for 20 seconds, and then rest for 10 seconds. Do three circuits.
Researchers have found doing vigorous exercise can increase metabolic rates for as much as 14 hours afterward, which means you’ll still be burning calories long after you fit in a workout.
Use Monday to fit in quick workouts while spending quality time with your family and friends. It will pay off by alleviating stress and enhancing your mental well-being. Happy Thanksgiving!
The City of Decatur Department of Parks and Recreation is pleased to announce the receipt of a grant totaling $47,994 from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (GOHS). This funding, provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), will enhance safety training for pedestrians and bicyclists through surveys, activities, and educational programs. The City will collaborate with various agencies to offer approximately 30 opportunities for residents of all ages and abilities to deepen their understanding of bicycle-related traffic laws.
Allen Poole, Director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, emphasized the importance of this initiative: “Part of the GOHS mission is to assist in implementing programs and campaigns designed to prevent crashes and eliminate traffic fatalities on our roads. GOHS will continue to build new partnerships and strengthen existing ones to create, refine, and implement safety programs, helping our state and nation work towards zero traffic fatalities.”
The Decatur Parks and Recreation Department is excited to have been selected for this grant award for the fiscal year 2025, which spans from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025. The funding will facilitate targeted programs that align with the City’s commitment to improving mobility as detailed in Destination 2030, Decatur’s strategic plan adopted on October 18, 2021.
This GOHS grant will fund educational outreach and activities designed to positively impact Decatur’s residents and visitors. Our initiatives will include engaging activities in partnership with local schools and in collaboration with the Decatur Police and Decatur Fire Rescue.
This grant represents a critical component of our commitment to Decatur’s mission of promoting meaningful and sustained opportunities for community engagement, collaboration, and regional partnerships. We believe that the pedestrian and bicycle safety initiatives enabled by this grant will have a profound and lasting impact on our community.
When the weather is sunny and delightful, taking a stroll through the neighborhood or exploring your local park is a terrific way to get your daily dose of physical activity. But gloomy storm clouds and frost-covered sidewalks can often discourage us from venturing outside.
On these frightful days, it’s best to take your Monday Mile walk indoors.
…But how?
Even if you can’t get to indoor facilities like gyms and shopping centers, there are still many ways to get in your weekly steps from the comfort of your own home. This Monday, get in your Monday Mile without stepping outdoors.
Stairs
Walking up and down the stairs is a surprisingly effective form of aerobic exercise. It burns more calories than jogging, and can also increase muscle strength, improve endurance, and preserve bone density. Although you may not go the same “distance” as if you were on a treadmill or track, you will still get in a tremendous workout.
Hallways
Fitting in fitness can be fun, especially if you’re stuck in the house all day. Put on some headphones and walk around the house listening to an energizing soundtrack. If you have a step counter or another wearable fitness device—even better! You can challenge yourself to beat your last week’s step total. Use breaks in the work day to take a few laps around the house or apartment. It will benefit your body as well as your state of mind.
Supermarkets
We’re not advocating that you use your local supermarket as a gymnasium, but if you have the opportunity to go grocery shopping during off-hours, you can actually manage to get a pretty good workout strolling up and down the many aisles. Pushing a cart around the perimeter of the store is a fun (and delicious) way to get in extra steps during the week.
Treadmill
This one is pretty obvious, but if you have a treadmill, you can easily walk at any time of day. Set it up in front of your television and turn on one of your favorite shows. Next thing you know, you’ll have effortlessly walked a couple miles by the time the episode is over.
Living Room
How can you walk a mile in your living room? Easy, just walk-in-place. Sure, it might sound silly, but walking in place is actually a great source of aerobic exercise that you can do during down time or commercial breaks. In a study published by the Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise journal, participants who walked in place for an hour burned an average of 258 calories, compared to roughly 304 calories for people who walked on a treadmill.
Walking is one of the simplest ways to get more exercise for people of any fitness level and age. It’s good for your heart, bones, muscles, weight, and your mood. This Monday, don’t let anything stop you, not even the weather.
Regardless of age or ability level, sometimes it’s just hard to find the energy, motivation, or confidence to get back into a workout routine. Whether you fear getting injured or are just reluctant to get back into the gym, it’s important to remember that a little anxiety about recommitting to exercise is perfectly normal.
This Monday, take a moment to consider the thoughts that are holding you back. By identifying our own barriers, we are better equipped to break them down.
Check out our list of common fitness fears, and start overcoming them.
Little/No Time
Our schedules are pretty tight, but there’s always some time to fit in some fitness. If you’re stuck helping with homework or cleaning up after dinner, use this time as an opportunity to perform some quick-and-easy kitchen workouts, like counter pushups or stove squats. You can also find more creative ways to fit in fitness, like parking farther away from store entrances or taking an additional walk up and down your staircase.
Intimidation
Getting back into exercise can be a lot to handle. Build up your confidence and squash feelings of self-doubt by repeating a few positive affirmations throughout the day. These words of inspiration provide the extra courage and focus you need to take your first (and second) step towards exercise.
Lack of Support
You don’t need to be working out next to someone to be part of a fitness community. Create your own virtual workout group by connecting online with friends, colleagues, or distant cousins. You can send each other sweaty selfies or other (maybe more flattering?) evidence of your progress. If you’ve got a full household, get everyone involved in your workout by practicing some easy family yoga poses.
Low Energy
A lot of factors contribute to your energy levels, but a restful sleep can really make a big difference. Try getting some extra shut-eye, and make sure to schedule your physical activity for times you feel the most awake and energized.
Missing Motivation
Sometimes, even the assurance of better health is not a strong enough motivator. To solidify the commitment, try scheduling a specific time to work out, and write it down on a calendar, weekly planner, or in a fitness journal. If your workouts are getting a bit drab or monotonous, mix up your exercise routine to infuse it with a some more fun.
Fear of Injury
An important way to avoid injury and stay physically active is to understand your fitness level and know your health numbers. A quick self-assessment can help you identify which parts of your body are strong and healthy, and which may require some extra attention. Before doing any strenuous movements, make sure that you warmup beforehand and learn the proper form. Engaging in some simple stretching at the beginning of a workout can also reduce the risk of a strained muscle by improving your flexibility, coordination, and balance.
Lack of Skill
You don’t need to be a fitness junky to get in a decent workout. Any regular physical activity—walking upstairs, jogging around the block, carrying groceries—can be converted into a form of exercise. Try finding ways to fit in fitness; you’ll be surprised at how quickly those steps add up. Even an activity as innocuous as gardening can be a useful form of physical activity.
Cost
Want to work out for free? Easy. You don’t need any expensive gym membership or equipment to exercise. Walking, dancing, home workouts, and free online fitness classes and tutorials are all no-cost exercise options that can spice-up your fitness routine without busting your bank account.
Poor Weather Conditions
It’s too wet; it’s too cold; it’s too hot—these thoughts always cross our minds when the weather isn’t ideal. But on these less than perfect days, consider taking your workout or Monday mile indoors. Getting a modest workout even on days when you don’t feel like will help you stay consistent and on track.
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