Blazing trails is second nature to Will Allen. He grew up on a family farm in Maryland, with plenty to eat but not much money in the household. He played basketball well enough, in between farm chores, to become a statewide star and earn a scholarship to the University of Miami. He was the first African-American to play for that school in 1967.
Allen played pro ball, first in the old American Basketball Association (which merged into the National Basketball Association) and then in Europe. He parlayed his ambition into a good job at Procter & Gamble, the marketing giant.
But something was missing from Allen’s life: a farm. In 1982, he accepted a lucrative buyout offer and used the money to buy the last working farm in Milwaukee.
“I wanted my kids to grow up with that life,” Allen said.
That’s when the trailblazing went into overdrive. One son complained that none of his classmates awoke at 4 on summer mornings. Yet the son found time enough between his own chores to become a top-notch student and now is an attorney.
The Allens grew thousands of pounds of food each year, which they sold at a roadside stand. Allen expanded the produce stand to sell for other farmers, breaking past a million pounds of vegetables and fruit each summer and fall.
These days, Allen is director of the Growing Power organization and the associated Rainbow Farmers Cooperative (which was launched with a $150,000 federal grant a couple of years ago). Growing Power is dedicated to teaching students and adults how to farm. He is working with the City of Chicago on a number of urban farming initiatives. Growing Power’s outreach programs are wholly impressive and, flat out, provide hope where otherwise absent.
For instance, Growing Power has established the U-FiT (Urban Farmers in Training) project in partnership with First Presbyterian Church in Chicago. The church has dedicated four lots and a greenhouse it owns in the Central Woodlawn neighborhood (65th Street and Woodlawn Avenue). Community members worked the plots last summer and plan a bigger operation this growing season as the land has been purified for the chemical-free farming endorsed by Allen.
In Morgan Park, Allen and his colleagues are helping set up the Ile Olodo Osun Traditional West African Market Garden to train others in growing and selling organic herbal home remedies. At Waukegan High School, students are working an acre of farm crops to learn about organic agriculture and its business potential.
“You just see the enthusiasm in the young people grow right along with the tomatoes and peppers,” Allen said.
The Rainbow Farmers Cooperative has a Market Basket program in Milwaukee and Chicago that delivers plentiful boxes of produce (available in conventional and organic) each week during the growing season to pickup locations for neighborhood delivery. The Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance taps into the Market Basket program as part of a community service effort to get fresh produce to its West Side community. The local Healthy Harvest Program distributes Market Baskets to seniors living in Chicago Housing Authority residences.
Here’s a partial list of items in last season’s Market Baskets: Apples, basil, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collard greens, cucumbers, eggplants, grapes, lettuce, melons, mustard greens, micro greens, onions, okra, peaches, peas, peppers, spinach, sweet corn, tomatoes and turnip greens.
More Top Picks Best Countertop Pizza Ovens
Allen also helps Wisconsin farmers enter the Chicago market for organic meat. The Rainbow label lives up to its name. He represents black and Amish farmers, among others.
“We want to provide people with a starting point,” Allen said. “A big interest of mine is teaching young people about the rewards of farming. It is hard work but meaningful work. Feeding our communities has to be a priority for all of us.”
Allen is busy with all sorts of new projects, including an idea to use the millions of worms raised at his Milwaukee farm to compost food waste. He is interested in the entire food chain.
Growing Power will hold monthly weekend workshops at its Milwaukee facility next weekend and in April and May. (Go to www.growingpower.org.) But be prepared. Many attendees have been inspired enough to start community programs and experience the sweat, dog-tiredness and dirt under the fingernails common among rural and urban farmers alike.
“When I sit down with people, I say, `Look at my hands. If you do this work, your hands will look like mine,'” Allen said. “I say, `You’re gonna get hot, you’re gonna get sweaty, you’re gonna get dirty, you’re gonna get frustrated sometimes.’ But when you grow something, it takes all that pain away.”
———-
E-mail Bob Condor at [email protected]. Send health and fitness news to [email protected].