Growing Power

I became aware of Will Allen's non-profit organization by reading the July 5th NY Times magazine article which describes the "good food movement" developed by Allen who learned to created soil from waste. In 14 greenhouses on two city acres of Milwaukee's northwest side, Allen and his paid workers and volunteers produce about $250,000 each year as Allen trains farmers in intensive polyculture.

Growing Power's mission is to help provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities. 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. Check out this blog for more info.

His daughter Erika Allen runs Growing Power's satellite office in Chicago. Since 2002, Growing Power has worked in collaboration with Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church to facilitate the Chicago Avenue Community Garden. In addition, Growing Power created a 20,000 square foot urban farm on Chicago’s lakefront adjacent to Buckingham Fountain and Lincoln Memorial in Grant Park. As the winner of several high profile grants (Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation & Kellogg Foundation) Growing Power has many projects running, including one in collaboration with the Chicago Park District,which manages the Jackson Park Urban Farm and Community Allotment Garden in Chicago.

The Chicago Growing Power websites states: "The growing beds use Growing Power’s Living Biological Worm System approach and is an active learning tool to teach youth and adults the importance of closed-loop systems and how to grow food in urban soil which is often depleted or contaminated. Learning how to compost using both aerobic and anaerobic digestion methods and the production of valuable vermicompost and compost tea is stressed and part of the hands-on training and demonstration both with gardeners and our youth." This may be a good resource for our IGSS students who want to learn the basics of soil fertility or who want to volunteer as garden helpers.

Contact information:
Milwaukee Headquarters: 5500 W. Silver Spring Drive, Milwaukee, WI 53218 phone 414.527.1546 l Fax 414.527.1908
Chicago Projects Office: 2215 W. North Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647 phone 773.486.6005