by Jessica Barnett

If Somerville’s Friends of the Community Path has its way, the trail, an extension of the Minutemen Path, may be extended in the near future, making it more accessible for Somerville residents.

The organization is trying to extend the path from Cedar St., where it now ends, to Central St., said Joel Bennett, founder and chairperson of the Friends of the Path.

Friends of the Community Path, an organization that promotes a safe and practical network of bike and pedestrian paths in the community, is one of six community partners of Somerville’s branch of Active Living by Design (ALbD). Friends of the Community Path will present its plans June 15 at the 25% Design hearing, which is open to Somerville residents.

Bennett said the organization is hoping to add a community garden or dog walk to the path, but he anticipates challenges with those proposals.

The main goals of the project are to get people active and to bring physical activity benefits to lower income communities in Somerville, according to Active Living by Design’s Web site. With this in mind, Bennett, a vehicular cyclist, said that he wants the focus of the path to be not on bicycling, but on the community.

Active Living by Design, a national suite of programs created by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to address physical inactivity in the U.S., has six groups in Somerville. These groups are Groundwork Somerville, Friends of the Community Path, the Somerville Health Department, the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, Shape Up Somerville, and the Somerville Housing and Community Development Department.

The organization, according to its Web site, aims to promote the concept of active living to combat obesity in the U.S. and advocates exercising for at least 30 minutes a day, whether it’s walking, biking, playing in the park or even taking the stairs.

The Friends of the Community Path was recently one of 25 organizations to win a Robert Wood Johnson grant, which will yield its organizers $200,000 over a five-year period to keep the project alive, Bennett said.

“The grant was given to us to fight the obesity epidemic and to get people more active in Somerville,” said Bennett.

(The 25% Design hearing will be held June 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the
Visiting Nurses Assisted Living Community, 259 Lowell St., third floor. More information about the Friends of the Community Path can be found at www.pathfriends.org.)