Healthy Savannah's Armand Turner Elected as Friends of Tide to Town Board President
Wednesday, March 29th, 2023
Friends of Tide To Town, Inc. (TTT) has announced the election of its 2023 board of directors. Chairman Armand Turner will be joined on the executive board by Paula Kreissler, vice chair; Marsha Buford, treasurer; and Kirra Fields, secretary. Board members include Laura Ballock, John Bennett, Caila Brown, Brent Buice, Terry Enoch, John Giordano, Denise Grabowski, Mike Maynor, Jeanine Backman Roach and George Seaborough.
The Friends of Tide to Town was founded in 2018 to lead the community-based engagement, implementation and stewardship of Savannah’s Urban Trail System, through the lens of health and equity.
When completed, the project will include a network of 30+ miles of bikeable and walkable trails connecting more than 60 neighborhoods and 30 schools in Savannah and Chatham County, from downtown to the marshes and waterways.
At the heart of the system is the Truman Linear Park Trail, connecting Lake Mayer to Daffin Park. A three-mile portion has been open since 2020, with the remainder of construction expected to get underway by this summer. The entire project is about six miles long and will link 827 acres of existing parkland in Savannah and Chatham County. Including the Daffin Park trail loop and the Lake Mayer trail loop, the total connected pathway will be approximately 9 miles.
A native of Gary, Ind., Turner is the Physical Activity Program manager for Healthy Savannah and its Racial & Ethnic Approaches to Community Health grant program, co-administered with the YMCA of Coastal Georgia. He is a graduate of Indiana University with a BS in recreation and has served on the Friends of TTT board since 2019.
“I am excited to continue to build and foster activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations that are easily accessible to all people in Savannah and Chatham County,” said Turner. “We are focused on serving Savannah neighborhoods most in need of safety improvements and connecting homes to schools, employment centers, and services.”
In 2018, a portion of the $3.4 million awarded to Healthy Savannah and the YMCA of Coastal GA through the CDC’s Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) grant was dedicated to the Friends of Tide to Town’s efforts to increase activity friendly routes to everyday destinations, specifically for low wealth African Americans.
As a member of Tide To Town’s REACH Team, Turner, along with fellow board members Denise Grabowski and Laura Ballock, has helped identify and prioritize 10 neighborhoods within the City of Savannah in which efforts to improve connectivity could be concentrated.
