Taken from Food First's online newsletter

Growing Power—Building Healthy Communities
by Alex Perrotti

Will Allen, the co-founder and director of Growing Power, was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his innovative work in urban food justice. His vision is to increase access to healthy and affordable food, “we can not have healthy communities without a health food system.” Growing Power, created in 1993, is a nonprofit land trust that operates rural and urban farms and distributes food to Milwaukee and Chicago residents through a CSA program. The organization also seeks to enhance local food security by linking the over 300 family farms which make up the Rainbow Farmer’s Collective to residents of Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago via their “Farm-to-City Market Basket Program.”

The core of Allen’s work through Growing Power involves empowering communities, locally, nationally and internationally. Workshops are regularly offered on site and at satellite training facilities in organic gardening, bee keeping, aquaculture and animal husbandry and over 3,500 people visit the demonstration sites for tours annually. Since its beginnings, Growing Power has provided employment and professional training opportunities to low-income youth. The Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative, which is also hosted by Growing Power, is a coalition of farmers, marketers and workers, which seeks to dismantle racism on all levels of the food system.

http://www.growingpower.org/

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4537249/