Greetings, all. I am finishing packing and sending out last-minute e-mails but I want to start off my 2010 blog with an entry about Will Allen. I will be spending the next 3 weeks interning for Growing Power in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hopefully there will be many people reading this blog as my hope is to raise awareness about what Will is doing over there and bring his concept to western Massachusetts and elsewhere!
Here is a short description of what Will Allen is doing (read back a few entries and there are some links to websites about his organization):
Will Allen, is doing very big things. As an urban farmer he is "Inspiring communities to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time."
Allen, who is 60, asserts that our industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and stuffing us with bad calories. Like others, he advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local doesn’t mean a rolling pasture or even a suburban garden: it means 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project.
In the last several years, he has become a darling of the foundation world. In 2005, he received a $100,000 Ford Foundation leadership grant. In 2008, the MacArthur Foundation honored Allen with a $500,000 “genius” award. And in May, the Kellogg Foundation gave Allen $400,000 to create jobs in urban agriculture. The Clinton Foundation has named Will their "hero" and wants his model to be brought to Africa.
Allen is the go-to expert on urban farming, and there is a hunger for his knowledge. "Growing food, growing minds, growing communities: that’s Will Allen's agenda. His organization, Growing Power, teaches inner-city children about the rewards, the challenges, and the science of growing your own food.
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