Growing Power on Milwaukee Renaissance

Subject: Growing/Three years
From: Grace Lee Boggs <glbg@sbcglobal.net>
To: working/growing <glbg@sbcglobal.net>

TOGETHER WE ARE GROWING POWER
By Grace Lee Boggs
Michigan Citizen, March 19–25, 2006

³We¹re not just growing food, we¹re growing communities.”

Over the weekend of March 10–12 I attended a training session
of Growing Power, a two acre urban farm on the northwest side of Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.

It was an unforgettable experience for me and the approximately seventy
other participants who included youngsters and oldsters from all over the
country and from many different backgrounds.

For example, I was in a project planning workshop with Wesley, a 13-year
old African American middle schooler from the neighborhood, and Hank, a
middle-aged Puerto Rican psychiatrist interested in organizing a similar
urban farm in his Rochester, New York neighborhood.

Growing Power is a fulfillment of the vision of 6¹7² Will Allen, the first
African American to play basketball with the University of Miami. Raised on
a farm in Maryland, Will always treasured the sense of extended family and
community that he experienced as a child because his family never lacked
for food and took it for granted that they should share it with those in
need. So, after a pro basketball career and working in sales and sales
technology with Proctor & Gamble, he decided in the early 1990s to buy a two
acre plot in ³Greenhouse Alley,² a stretch of small farms that fed
Milwaukee in the early decades of the 20th century.

Will began with a Vision ­ a Vision of Independence, independence from
poverty, from chemicals, from far-off food sources, from farming techniques
that are no longer viable given our ever dwindling supply of farmland and
fossil fuels, and also independent of the illusion that community can exist
without individuals accepting responsibility.

As a result, Growing Power has blossomed into a model food system which now
includes

• Food Production: Aquaphonics and aquaculture, beekeeping, animal

husbandry, biological worm growing system, rain gutter gardening, year-round
growing in cold-weather climates, nutrition and culinary education and menu
development.

• Energy and Waste Management: Vermiculture, vermicomposting;

bio-remediation, greenhouse construction, development of community
partners for waste collection.

• Sales, Marketing and Planning: Assembly and distribution of market

baskets; farmers market development and training; organization and
management of farmers coops; customer service training, project planning and
conference planning, DVD and video production; Graphic Design.

• Professional Training. Internships, curriculum building, urban

farming development; national immigrant farming initiative, Youth Corps,
University Projects.

I was especially fascinated by the Youth Corps program which
starts kids out when they are eight or nine and works with them until they
go to college. Kids get what the schools don¹t provide. They work hard,
learn how to think on their feet, and are challenged to solve problems
instead of giving up and complaining when something doesn¹t work out
immediately.

In addition to hosting thousands of visitors to Growing Power in Milwaukee
every year, the powerfully-built, energy-radiating Will mentors and works
with groups all over the country, providing on the site training in how to
build a sustainable food system. In nearby Chicago his daughter, artist
Erika Allen, has designed a 19,000 square foot garden in Grant Park and
heads a market basket program which distributes the food harvested at this
garden to local shelters and community organizations.

A good way to get a glimpse into the future is to attend one of the
weekend training sessions offered by Growing Power in Milwaukee. Two more
weekend training sessions, on April 22–23 and May 6–7, are scheduled for
this spring. Each costs $300, including five delicious meals produced by
small family farmers and exciting workshops on how, for example, to
construct and maintain a worm bin, how to use vermicompost to remediate the
soil,and how to build an aquaphonics system to maintain and monitor tilapia
fish production, from mosquito to two pound size, in a closed loop/natural
system. Scholarships are available. Arrangements can be made to stay at the
nearby Baymouth Inn at $50 a night.

For more information, see Website www.growingpower.org/email
<http://www.growingpower.org/email>