Trailblazing Culture Workers: Sally Leiser, Growing Power Volunteer Coordinator

Milwaukee is blessed with people with a lifelong commitment to the commonwealth cause.

Sally w. Janine Arseneau

Sally Leiser, volunteer coordinator for Growing Power, perfectly illustrates this tradition, rooted in Milwaukee’s social democratic and progressive civic culture heritage.

And Don Austin

In the 1970s Sally, Pat Jankowitz, and Peggy McElrath inspired the downtown Kiwanis club, where Sally’s father had volunteered, and musicians from across the country(even Yoko Ono!), to support the city’s first Stay in School program.

In the 1980s Sally worked with Joel Pfeiffer’s mural project with the USSR, called “Clay Stomp.”

Sally w. Tracey Sperko

In Sally’s words, this was “a fun, playful, community minded peace mural exchange…a magical project where 100 wonderful volunteers helped orchestrate the event at Summerfest grounds, 5,000 came to stomp the clay and then make a fabulous mural which resides in St. Petersburg.

Bringing the People
To Meet Big Will

Our planning took 2 years to develop, many in kind donations kept us alfoat. A wonderful community of friends, artists, networkers, etc. were involved and we still have close knit connections. Then we went to Lennigrad at the time, 20 of us, to create the mural that resides at our airport.”

At Growing Power Sally has recruited hundreds of people to take Growing Power Tours and give their labor to create a community based food movement in the USA and beyond.