Growing Power, IncExamining contributions and outreach at different levels

By: Matt Schwartz

What is Growing Power? Growing Power is a national non profit group, headquartered in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin that serves the community by providing access to safe, affordable, healthy, and quality food. An almost entirely self-sustained urban farm, located on Milwaukee’s north side, Growing Power strives to provide citizens with quality organic products especially in areas where they would not normally be easy to afford. That idea is part of Growing Power’s message that a healthy community starts with a healthy food system. Growing Power does a tremendous job of addressing inequalities within the urban sprawl of Milwaukee along with outreach programs that stretch to Chicago and other areas of Illinois. Furthermore, Growing Power has begun work in conjunction with groups in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

More about Growing Power Growing Power was founded in 1982 by Will Allen, a former

professional ABA basketball player who grew up on a vegetable farm in Maryland as a child. He bought the land which serves as the Urban Farm headquarters in 1982 and still serves as director of the organization today. Recently, in 2008 he received the Macarthur Foundation Fellowship, or “Genius Grant” that goes to anyone who shows exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work. Winners receive $500,000, paid in quarterly installments over a five year period. According to the Macarthur Foundation, “The fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential.“ This ensures that Growing Power’s contributions have not gone unnoticed, and the organization should continue to expand with time.

Will Allen, CEO and founder of Growing Power

How does Growing Power do what they do?

Growing Power is a model of efficiency. From how hard their employees work, to what goes on to support the day to day operations, nothing their organization does is wasteful, everything has a purpose or a secondary use. For example, their aquaponics systems not only continually provide nutrients for their perpetually harvesting legumes, but they also serve as an ecosystem to raise fish that can be sold to restaurants, markets, or even someone looking for a Friday night filet. All soil used by Growing Power is organic matter collected and composted on site to create an ideal, fertile growing environment for the plant life. The compost includes 80,000 pounds of food waste per week, 20,000 pounds of brewery waste from Lakefront Brewery, 300 pounds of coffee grounds per week via Alterra Coffee, and up to 500 pounds of newspaper weekly from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The compost, introduced with red wriggler worms, has fertilizer level quality, all while being completely organic and non-chemical.

How does Growing Power do what they do? (continued) In addition, the hard work of employees on site and self

containment of the farm allows it to run smoothly and cheaply on a day to day basis. The employees are driven and are great at showing the volunteers how to lend a helping hand. From sifting compost to filling soil trays, everything done by volunteers is just a small cog in the working machine of Growing Power.

The green houses are heated by one small heater each, along with the natural heat given off by the abundant plant life. Each aquaponics system is capable of being maintained with only a pool heater and a small pump and everything on site is recycled over and over again.

Growing Power and the local neighborhoods As an organization Growing Power has a great impact on many

different scales. However, the greatest impact is probably on the local area right around their urban farm headquarters. Located on the north side of Milwaukee, in a not particularly affluent area, Growing Power provides affordable access to organic foods that would not normally be available. It’s common knowledge that a large problem in Milwaukee is access to grocery stores in low income areas, and Growing Power helps to amend that issue. Instead of having to rely on corner stores and small grocery shops because of how far it is to major chain stores in these areas, Growing Power provides an alternative with their grocery store and farmers market. Not every resident has the means to get to and from a grocery store easily.

Addressing the Urban Inequality One of Growing Power’s main goals is to provide access to their

affordable foods to everyone. One way they do that is through numerous outreach programs within the city of Milwaukee. Their outreach programs include work with:

• Growers of Peace Community Garden• Oakton Manor• Sixteenth Street Community Health Center• University School of Milwaukee• Urban Day School

“Los Cultivadores de Paz” The growers of peace community garden is a summer youth

program located on the south side of Milwaukee on the Prince of Peace church property. At this program, youths learn about nutrition and building a healthier community with a focus on soil remediation. At this outreach they have built a pizza garden and have future plans to build a tool shed, picnic area, rain collection barrels, all while furthering their summer youth programs.

Pizza Garden

Oakton Manor Oakton Manor is a residential facility on the south side of

Milwaukee. In 2006, Growing Power trained volunteers in organic gardening and installed raised microbial garden beds on site at the Manor. The new garden is one of the largest on the South side of Milwaukee and the produce grown there is distributed among residents and used for meals cooked at Oakton Manor. The produce grown here includes easily cooked cherry tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, cucumbers, and peppers.

Sixteenth Street Community Health Center

The Sixteenth street community health center has a loose partnership with Growing Power that benefits both groups. SSCHC regularly orders Market Baskets from Growing Power, which are shipments of fresh produce that Growing Power delivers on a weekly basis. The SSCHC asks Growing Power to build more community gardens like the ones that have been built at San Rafael Middle School and the United Community Center. In addition, Growing Power is building a small aquaponics system at the school to help teach students about water conservation and safe gardening practices. All of this is also in conjunction with Kinnickinnic River Revitalization Program.

University School of Milwaukee Over the past few years, Growing Power has done a lot of work

with the University School of Milwaukee with regards to sustainability. Growing Power trained numerous students and teachers in gardening practices, project planning, vermicomposting, and greenhouse production. They then installed raised garden beds and a large, school-wide compost system. This compost system processes roughly 200-300 pounds of food waste per week and uses it for their organic vegetable garden.

Urban Day School In conjunction with Growing Power, the Urban Day School installed

a garden of it’s own at the 12th and Atkinson street site. The teachers at the school incorporated lessons with the gardening practices for summer school students and had them plant produce such as tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, onions, and pumpkin flowers. Planting these foodstuffs with a focus on Latino cuisine made the program so successful the UDS is planning on building another garden at their 24th and Vilet street school location.

Growing Power on a broader scale In addition to the outreach programs Growing Power has started

in Milwaukee, they have expanded into Illinois and the Chicago urban area as well. Through their Chicago projects office Growing Power helps to assist local community food centers and small urban farms around the area. Outreach programs include

• The Chicago Avenue Community Garden at Cabrini-Green• Grant Park ‘Art on the farm’ Urban Agriculture Potager• Jackson Park Urban Farm and Community Allotment Garden• Youth Corps• School Gardens• Just…Good…Food

Chicago Avenue Community Garden

This program, also in part sponsored by the local church, is an attempt to help the low-income housing neighborhood transition to a more mixed income residential area. With the help of Growing Power, the church turned an old basketball court into a community garden to help provide fresh produce to the community. This revamped area now also a hangout for young children who live in the area as it is a safe, positive environment for kids. Growing Power supplied the materials to build the garden, designed and planned it, and provides the daily assistance needed for the day to day operations.

Grant Park ‘Art on the Farm’ In partnership with the Chicago Park district, Growing Power

helped create a 20,000 square foot urban farm in the heart of downtown Chicago in Grant Park. Not only does the farm provide vast quantities of edibles to the urban area, but it serves as a teaching tool to the young people of Chicago. The farm focuses on job preparedness of young people, and interns are taught gardening practice and how to run the day to day operations of an urban farm. The interns learn how to observe and make decisions and improve their culinary skill while maintaining mental and physical fitness. The farm also focus on how to build skills like entrepreneurship and marketing through the farmers market. The farm is a very important aspect in shaping the youths of the city and helping them to succeed.

Jackson Park Urban Farm and Community Allotment Garden

This small, half acre farm, also working with Chicago’s park system, serves as model farm on Chicago’s south side. Growing Power helps by providing organic produce to residents but it more used as teaching center to show people gardening principles. The staff there teaches people gardening techniques, the importance of sustainability practices, and other basic urban farming ideas.

Other Outreach Programs Also, Growing Power has

youth outreach programs in the summer for kids. They teach kids gardening skills and maintenance all while using the urban farming as a teaching tool. The kids are paid modestly for the work they end up doing which is just a bonus for the positive influence the programs have on their lives.

What else can be done? Through all the positive things Growing Power does, there is still

more that can always be done. Centered locally, Growing Power does a phenomenal job of reaching the youth of the community and providing positive reinforcement and skills that can be utilized later in life. They also are wonderful at supplying the urban area with affordable, quality produce where it would normally be hard to attain. However, it is obvious that there are limitations to what a single group can do by itself. Growing Power can do a lot in the areas where it has already sunk it’s feet in and made significant impact, but they need all the help they can get. They need other, similar organizations to come out and partner with them all over the country to make a big difference on the national scale. No one group can do it all, especially a non profit organization with aims of providing the urban community with gardens.

What else can be done? (Cont.) If other, like-minded organizations come out of the woodwork and

are willing to work together for a similar ideal, then progress can be made. Growing Power has made incredible strides in Milwaukee and Chicago over the past 29 years, the organization looks to be getting bigger and more recognized by the day. That can only help them as they strive for urban equality. In order to succeed however, they need continued support from volunteers and outreach programs like here at UWM. Even volunteers like us students have an unquantifiable effect on the organization and you can even see it when you donate your time. The employees just seem so grateful for the support and in order for continued success, they need all the help they can get.

The End