Active Living Coalition
Building a community where movement and connection are supported, safe, and woven into daily life.
Coalition Priorities
The Active Living Coalition works alongside local governments, nonprofits, and community advocates to create active, accessible spaces and connect people to the places where they live, work, and gather. We invest in partners doing on-the-ground work — including Bike Walk Greenville and Greenville Connects — because we know that building safer, more connected communities takes sustained, coordinated effort. And we raise awareness about active living opportunities across Greenville, empowering residents to advocate for safer, more walkable communities.
Explore & Play
Research consistently shows that the healthiest communities aren’t healthier because people exercise more — they’re healthier because movement is built into everyday life. The Active Living Coalition works to make that true for Greenville County, ensuring that parks, playgrounds, and open spaces are available, welcoming, and within reach for every family.
Open Community Use
Open Community Use refers to when schools, churches, or other institutions allow the public to use their recreational facilities – like playgrounds, fields, or gym – during hours when they’re not being used by the organization. This expands access to safe, convenient places for physical activity, especially in neighborhoods where recreational space is limited.
The Active Living Coalition works with partners to increase Open Community Use across Greenville County by supporting policy changes, building relationships, and helping sites safely open their spaces to the community.
Upstate Park Hop
What started as a simple idea — give families something free and fun to do in the summer — has grown into one of the most beloved active living traditions in the Upstate.
Now in its 13th year, Park Hop is a free, summer-long scavenger hunt that encourages kids and families to explore parks across the Upstate. Created in partnership with nine local park agencies, it has become a region-wide celebration of movement, discovery, and the joy of getting outside together.
This past summer, more than 6,700 visits were logged across 23 featured parks. A newly launched Park Hop website drew nearly 10,000 visits as families planned their routes and tracked their adventures.
Would you like to participate or learn more? Visit parkhop.org!
Safe Routes for All
Where you can safely walk, bike, or ride shapes more than your commute — it shapes your health, your access to opportunity, and how connected you feel to your community. The Active Living Coalition works to make sure those routes exist, are safe, and reach the communities that need them most.
Neighborhood Connectivity
A neighborhood’s streets, sidewalks, and shared spaces determine whether getting around on foot or by bike feels possible — or dangerous. In Greenville County, infrastructure investment hasn’t reached every community equally. Many residential areas have incomplete sidewalks that end abruptly or exist only on one side of the road, forcing people onto streets that haven’t been designed for them. Large corridors designed for car traffic are dangerous for Greenville pedestrians and cyclists.
The Active Living Coalition works with partners — including Bike Walk Greenville and Greenville Connects — to strengthen the connections between homes, schools, parks, and everyday destinations. That means supporting projects that improve pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, advocating for transit access, and bringing community voices into the planning decisions that shape how neighborhoods are built and connected. Because when streets work for everyone, communities grow stronger.
Safe Routes to School
The path a child takes to school every day is about more than getting there — it’s about whether that journey feels safe enough to make. For many students in Greenville County, it doesn’t. The Active Living Coalition works with schools, families, and community partners to change that through walk audits that identify specific safety gaps, infrastructure improvements like high-visibility crosswalks and crossing guard equipment, and policy advocacy that keeps safety on the agenda at the local and state level.
This work is incremental by design. One school, one corridor, one community at a time. But it compounds. When one local high school received safety improvements, four more schools reached out asking for the same. That’s how systems change: not all at once, but steadily, as communities see what’s possible and start working towards it.
Active Living Community Events
Check out the calendar below for upcoming meetings—not just for our Active Living Coalition, but also for community discussions and ways to get moving. Bringing people together is part of how we build communities designed for movement and connection. Whether you’re looking to share feedback, learn more, or get some steps in, you’ll find helpful information below. If you’d like to join one of our Coalition meetings, we’d love to have you. Message Sabrina Smith for more information or to add an event to the calendar.
STAY CONNECTED & GET INVOLVED!
If you have any questions about the Active Living Coalition, or would like to join one of our upcoming meetings, please message Sabrina Smith.