By Dan Estabrook – September 23, 2008
Tonic’s non-profit of the week is Growing Power — a Milwaukee-based non-profit whose mission is to help lower-income communities have equal access to healthy, high-quality and affordable food.
Growing Power implements this mission by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner.
On top of providing equal access to high-quality and safe food, Growing Power Founder Will Allen is one of this year’s recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation’s Genius Fellowships, a $500,000 grant to further Allen’s work. Allen started Growing Power 15 years ago when a transformed a run-down farm in a low-income Milwaukee neighborhood into a place where unemployed teens could come and work. The former professional basketball player and marketer at Proctor and Gamble, and now professional urban farmer, has stuck to his guns to create a thriving farm that delivers goods year round and has buillt numerous partnerships with local food coops and farmer’s markets to distribute his healthy and affordable products.
Allen’s facility offers innovative farming in a compact 2-acre plot:
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six greenhouses growing over 12,000 pots of herbs, salad mix, beet greens, arugula, mustards, seedlings, sunflower and radish sprouts. These greenhouses also host production of six hydroponic systems growing Tilapia, Perch, and a variety of herb and salad greens, and 50 bins of red wriggler worms;
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a aquaponics hoop house with two independent fish runs and growing beds for additional salad mix and seedlings;
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three hoop houses growing a mixture of salad greens;
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a worm depository hoop house;
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an apiary with 8 beehives;
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three poultry hoop houses with laying hens and ducks;
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outdoor pens for livestock including goats, rabbits, and turkeys;
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a large plot of land on which the first stage of the organization’s sophisticated composting operation is located including 30 pallet compost systems;
- an anerobic digester to produce energy from the farm’s food waste; and
- a small retail store to sell produce, meat, worm castings, and compost to the community.
Growing Power provides workshops and internships to engage teenagers and young adults, often minorities and immigrants, in producing good foods for their communities. Participants learn hands-on training to take the sustainable farming concept the other urban areas. In fact, Allen’s daughter Erika has also started an offshoot project in Chicago.
Having grown up on a farm myself, I can attest to how valuable the farm experience is to a young person — responsibility and accountability are paramount because crop and animals die when someone blows off his or her duties. I am sure this takeaway is one that sticks with these teens as they move into adulthood.
So, please join me in congratulating Will Allen and Growing Power for their prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. May they set the example for a bright future of urban farming!
Please check out our Featured Video with Will Allen!
Via Grist and MacArthur Foundation.
“Tonic Generation’s Non-profit of the Week” is a regular feature at Tonic News. If you would like to nominate a non-profit for consideration, please email dan@tonic.com. The non-profit must be an accredited 501(c)3. We look forward to your submissions!