What is Lively Omaha?
 Every Great City Has Them
Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City all have those great public spaces that enliven the urban scene. Places to take the family to play, meet new people, play games, read or talk. Places that lighten your mood, provide an escape, or are great places to eat your lunch and just hang out.
Great Public Spaces
The places where people come together to enjoy a sense of community, to play games, walk, bike, skate, talk politics or enjoy art and nature. These places are our parks, our public plazas, our civic buildings, our markets and our transportation. Every great city has them and we at Lively Omaha want to help make more great places in Omaha.
What is Lively Omaha?
Lively Omaha is an initiative of the Omaha Community Foundation. In 1999, the Omaha Community Foundation commissioned the Omaha Philanthropy Study to explore the vision Omahan's have for their city's future and help define how the Foundation can better serve the community. The study, "Omaha, Above All Others On A Stream," found that Omahan's want their city to have five traits. For the last two years, OCF has been researching what it means to be connected, smart, significant, sparkling and fun. Lively Omaha is the product of that research and the newest initiative of the Omaha Community Foundation.
Lively Omaha was formed to put these five key attributes to work, transforming Omaha into an energetic and beautiful city by fostering lively, secure and distinctive places throughout the community. Places of activity. Places of pride. Places that connect its citizens and its visitors to the community.
Great Places. Great Spaces.
Lively Omaha has joined with the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) to build a model program that engages the community and its development. PPS is a 25 year old non-profit organization that helps create and sustain public places that build communities.
By creating a broad-based community initiative, Lively Omaha is dedicated to aligning the wide-ranging interests that deal in public spaces - from city hall to convention halls, from the smallest neighborhood to riverfront development. The result is much more than beautification, it is a transformation of how we connect with our city and utilize its tremendous resources like parks, plazas, buildings, markets, transportation and public art.
What does Lively Omaha Do?
Lively Omaha is a resource to promote the design and use of the most attractive, people-friendly and exciting public spaces. Lively Omaha is working to make Omaha's Public Places Great Spaces through:
· Education and Website resources about public spaces.
· Facilitation of the Place Game to evaluate public spaces.
· Demonstration projects to illustrate great place making.
· Advocacy for quality public spaces.
People Create Great Places
At Lively Omaha we believe that listening to the community is the best way to find out how to make a place great. You and your neighbors are the experts! Lively Omaha provides the help and resources to make your city's public spaces better, based on your input.
Volunteer Leadership of Lively Omaha Advisory Committee:
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Rex Fisher, Qwest Communications, Co-Chair
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Jefferson Pilot Financial
Co-Chair |
Omaha Community Volunteer:
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Barbara Haggart
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Jim Swoopes
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Lively Omaha Advisory Committee Membership:
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City of Omaha
Jennifer Mahlendorf - Economic Development
Larry Foster - Parks and Recreation
Bob Peters - Planning
Norm Jackman - Public Works
Douglas County Environmental Services
Kent Holm
Bahr, Vermeer and Haecker
George Haecker
Big Muddy Workshop, Inc.
John Royster
Bill and Ruth Scott Family Foundation
John Scott
ConAgra, Inc.
L. B. "Red" Thomas, (Retired Conagra Senior Vice President)
Downtown Omaha, Inc.
Anne Boyle
The Gallup Organization
Ed Miller, Committe member
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HDR Engineering, Inc.
Elwin Larson
Metro Area Transit (MAT)
Curt Simon
Neighborhood Center for Greater Omaha
Deidra Andrews
Omaha Community Foundation
Mike Leighton, President
Del Weber, Immediate Past President
Connie Spellman, Director, Lively Omaha
Anne Camp, Program Director
Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District
Steve Oltmans
Public Arts Commission
Allan K. Tubach
RDG Crose Gardner Shukert, Inc.
Martin Shukert
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
Terry Moore
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Volunteer Place Game Facilitators
Deidra Andrews
Anne Camp
Norita Collar
Angela Eikenberry
Jeri Engen
Ellen Fitzsimmons
Carol Haas
Barbara Haggart
Mary Irwin
Larry Jacobsen
Julie Kalkowski
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Amy Krueger
Jimmi Lossing
Ken Mayer
Chris Rupert
Pat Salerno
John Scott
Connie Spellman
Red Thomas
David Werner
Sara Woods
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Special Thanks
Lively Omaha wants to thank the Omaha World-Herald and the creative talent of Redstone Communication for the wonderful new Lively Omaha logo, brochure and print materials.
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