Posted on January 23, 2012 with No Comments
P R E S S R E L E A S E
January 23, 2012
Washington, DC – When Will Allen left his Rockville, MD family farm to play basketball at the University of Miami, he thought he’d left farming for good. But after playing professional basketball around the world, followed by a career as an accomplished corporate salesperson, Allen found himself back in the business of growing. Today, in addition to healthy food, he’s growing young minds and building a movement.
Widely considered one of the leading authorities in the expanding field of urban agriculture, Allen teaches inner-city youth about farming, business management and marketing, by taking them through the entire process, from planting seeds to selling produce at farmers’ markets. To date, he has developed partnerships with more than 10 Milwaukee Public School (MPS) schools to put into action school-based food projects that include curriculum-based programs complying with Wisconsin State Standards. Allen’s organization, Growing Power, has also supplied 40,000 Milwaukee Public School children in 75 elementary schools with the food it grows. Many of these youth have participated in a hands-on tour of the Growing Power Community Food Center or were introduced to the organization through an educational video accompanying their locally grown snack.
For this work, the NEA Foundation will present Allen with The Security Benefits Corporation Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education during the Salute to Excellence in Education Gala to be held at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC on Feb. 10, 2012. Past recipients of this prestigious award include former President Bill Clinton, Title IX advocate Billie Jean King, and Sesame Street Workshop.
“Will Allen is making an enormous difference in the lives of thousands of students,” said Harriet Sanford, President and CEO of the NEA Foundation. “We have supported his workshops for teachers and students that include training in urban sustainable agriculture practices, because we believe that in addition to encouraging students to adopt healthy habits for themselves and our planet, he is also providing them with 21st century skills they’ll need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.”
At Growing Power, a farm and community food center that he founded in Milwaukee, WI, and in community food projects across the nation and around the world, Allen promotes the belief that all people, regardless of their economic circumstances, should have access to fresh, safe, affordable and nutritious foods at all times. Using methods he has developed over a lifetime, he trains community members to become community farmers, assuring them a secure source of good food without regard to political or economic forces.
“I am honored to receive this NEA Foundation Award on behalf of my dedicated staff, community partners, Milwaukee Schools, and the City of Milwaukee,” said Mr. Allen. He continued, “Without our valuable community partners, such as the Milwaukee Public School System and the NEA Foundation, much of our work would not be possible….and I especially give thanks to Milwaukee children, their families, and teachers for their commitment to working with us to improve our community’s health, our educational system, and to provide opportunities for our young people to lead the way in developing a healthier, more sustainable, and equitable society.”
In 2010 Mr. Allen joined First Lady Michelle Obama as she launched the White House’s “Let’s Move” campaign to address issues affecting American youth and the risk of obesity. Allen was also recognized as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2010.
At the NEA Foundation gala, which attracts more than 800 leaders from the education,
business and philanthropy sectors, Allen will be honored along with 35 of the nation’s top educators, recipients of the California Casualty Awards for Teaching Excellence, and Jeannie Oakes, director of Ford Foundation’s Educational Opportunity and Scholarship Programs, who will accept the NEA Foundation’s Award for Philanthropy in Public Education on behalf of the organization.
About Growing Power
Growing Power was started in Milwaukee, WI, in 1993 by Will Allen, a 2008 winner of a MacArthur “Genius Award” who has long worked to produce and deliver healthy food to low-income communities. It is a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to 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.
The NEA Foundation
The NEA Foundation is a public charity supported by contributions from educators’ dues, corporate sponsors, and others who support public education initiatives. We partner with education unions, districts, and communities to create powerful, sustainable improvements in teaching and learning. Visit www.neafoundation.org for more information. Find us on Facebook and Twitter, and visit our blog.
The NEA Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education
The NEA Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education Gala is a national celebration of the men and women who work in America’s public schools. At this annual event, the Foundation recognizes, rewards, and promotes excellence in teaching and advocacy for the profession. The NEA Foundation and the National Education Association jointly present the awards with support from California Casualty, Horace Mann Educators Corporation, NEA Member Benefits, the Pearson Foundation, and Security Benefit Corporation.
Growing Power CONTACT:
Anne Eaton, Growing Power Office Manager
staff@growingpower.org; 414-527-1546
NEA Foundation CONTACT:
Carrie McCloud
cmccloud@nea.org; 202-822-7806
Posted on January 4, 2012 with 2 Comments
P R E S S R E L E A S E
For Immediate Release
January 3, 2012
NPA Awards Will Allen with the Rachel Carson Environmental Award for his Outstanding Contribution to the Natural Products Industry
Winners to Be Honored at Natural Products Association MarketPlace 2012, June 14-16 in Las Vegas
Milwaukee – The Natural Products Association (NPA) announces the winners of the 19th Annual NPA Awards for outstanding individuals and businesses that have made important contributions to the success of the natural products industry. Awardees will be honored for their achievements during Natural Products Association MarketPlace 2012, NPA’s annual trade show and convention, June 14-16 in Las Vegas. For more information, visit www.NPAinfo.org/awards. Honorees include Growing Power’s CEO, Will Allen, who will receive the Rachel Carson Environmental Award for his outstanding contributions to the environmental community.
Through this award the NPA recognizes the breadth of Mr. Allen’s accomplishments within the urban farm movement. By receiving this award, Allen joins a prestigious group of individuals who have made similar significant contributions in the sustainable environmental arena. Past winners include Paul Anastas, known as the father of green chemistry; Denis Hayes, director of the Bullitt Foundation, and creator of Earth Day; Dr. Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and expert in biodiversity and species conservation; Dr. Michael Balick, director of the Institute of Economic Botany for the New York Botanical Garden; Alice Waters, chef and champion of locally-grown and natural ingredients; and Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet.
Will Allen shared his gratitude for this honor and invited the greater community to join him and the Growing Power team this year as they continue to build the Good Food Revolution, “We offer monthly workshops, job training, farm outreach, internships, and youth programs to improve the environment locally and in communities across America.” He continued, “I believe that healthy communities cannot exist without healthy food systems, especially in urban areas, and I appreciate this recognition by the NPA for the work we have accomplished in Milwaukee, Chicago, and throughout the U.S.”
For more information about the NPA Awards and winners, visit www.NPAinfo.org/awards.
About Growing Power
Growing Power was started in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1993 by Will Allen, a 2008 winner of a MacArthur “Genius Award” who has long worked to produce and deliver healthy food to low-income communities. It is a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to 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.
About Will Allen
Will Allen, son of a sharecropper, former professional basketball player, ex-corporate sales leader, and now farmer, has become recognized as among the preeminent thinkers of our time on agriculture and food policy. The founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Allen is widely considered the leading authority in the expanding field of urban agriculture. At Growing Power and in community food projects across the nation and around the world, Allen promotes the belief that all people, regardless of their economic circumstances, should have access to fresh, safe, affordable and nutritious foods at all times. Using methods he has developed over a lifetime, Allen trains community members to become community farmers, assuring them a secure source of good food without regard to political or economic forces. In 2010 Mr. Allen joined First Lady Michelle Obama as she launched the White House’s “Let’s Move” campaign to address issues affecting American youth and the risk of obesity and Mr. Allen was also recognized as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
About Natural Products Association
The Natural Products Association (NPA), founded in 1936, is the largest and oldest nonprofit organization dedicated to the natural products industry. NPA represents over 1,900 members accounting for more than 10,000 locations of retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors of natural products, including foods, dietary supplements, and health/beauty aids. As the leading voice of the natural products industry, the NPA’s mission is to advocate for the rights of consumers to have access to products that will maintain and improve their health, and for the rights of retailers and suppliers to sell these products. Visit www.NPAInfo.org.
Media Contacts:
Growing Power
Anne Eaton
(414) 527-1546, ext. 102
staff@growingpower.org
Natural Products Association
Michael Keaton
mkeaton@npainfo.org
Posted on December 5, 2011 with No Comments
Visionary Leader and Farmer, Will Allen, Credits his Success to the
Values Learned as a Student-Athlete
Milwaukee, WI (December 1, 2011) – When Will Allen left his family’s farm to play basketball at the University of Miami (Florida), he thought he had left the farm for good. Now, 40 years later, Will Allen is elbow deep in dirt again and committed to growing food for the “Good Food Revolution.”
Known as the “Teddy,” the Theodore Roosevelt Award is the highest honor the NCAA bestows. Each year the award is presented to a former NCAA student-athlete for whom athletics in college and attention to physical well-being after graduation have led to a distinguished career of national significance. Allen will receive the award January 13, 2012 at the NCAA Honors Celebration during the 2012 NCAA Convention in Indianapolis.
Allen, an urban farmer, has gained regional and national attention over the last two decades for his work as the lead trainer and Chief Executive Officer of the non-profit organization, Growing Power, Inc., headquartered in Milwaukee, WI. In 1993, Allen offered a group of teens the opportunity to help him renovate the Growing Power greenhouses in order to grow food for their community. What started as a simple partnership to grow a few gardens blossomed into a national and global commitment to sustainable food systems. Allen’s knowledge and commitment turned the innovative Growing Power Community Food Center into the demonstration model and training grounds to support this work.
“I believe that healthy communities cannot exist without healthy food systems,” said Allen. To grow these healthy communities, Growing Power welcomes anyone who is interested in urban sustainable food systems, renewable energy, the environment, and of course, food, to participate in the many educational opportunities the organization offers. In particular, Growing Power provides regular trainings, resource development, technical support and outreach for limited resource farmers and socially disadvantaged communities.
“I really value this award, because it shows that student-athletes can provide more than just entertainment,” said Allen, who was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2010. “You can do something positive to impact people’s lives beyond just having them watch you play a sport. I hope other student-athletes will realize that there’s so much more to life than their sport.”
Allen often uses sport metaphors when encouraging his Growing Power staff of more than 100. During a recent staff meeting he said, “We all have to work together, like a basketball team. We have to perfect the same play and do it over and over again. And, if it doesn’t work, then we alter our game plan, but we have to trust each other to know the play.” Allen knows his game, and has lead his Growing Power team to succeed in developing and shaping the Good Food Revolution.
“Will Allen is one of the many examples of a student-athlete who makes a difference in the world after their playing days have ended. Mr. Allen’s passion to create healthy communities by providing fresh, safe, affordable and nutritious food – regardless of economic background – is inspiring,” said NCAA President Mark Emmert. “I am pleased to present the 2012 Theodore Roosevelt Award to Mr. Allen.”
About Growing Power
Growing Power was started in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1993 by Will Allen, a 2008 winner of a MacArthur “Genius Award” who has long worked to produce and deliver healthy food to low-income communities. It is a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to 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.
About Will Allen
Will Allen, son of a sharecropper, former professional basketball player, ex-corporate sales leader, and now farmer, has become recognized as among the preeminent thinkers of our time on agriculture and food policy. The founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Allen is widely considered the leading authority in the expanding field of urban agriculture. At Growing Power and in community food projects across the nation and around the world, Allen promotes the belief that all people, regardless of their economic circumstances, should have access to fresh, safe, affordable and nutritious foods at all times. Using methods he has developed over a lifetime, Allen trains community members to become community farmers, assuring them a secure source of good food without regard to political or economic forces. In 2010 Mr. Allen joined First Lady Michelle Obama as she launched the White House’s “Let’s Move” campaign to address issues affecting American youth and the risk of obesity and Mr. Allen was also recognized as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
About the NCAA and the NCAA Theodore Roosevelt Award
Founded more than one hundred years ago as a way to protect student-athletes, the NCAA continues to implement that principle with increased emphasis on both athletics and academic excellence.
The Theodore Roosevelt Award is presented annually to a distinguished citizen of national reputation and outstanding accomplishment who, having graduated from an NCAA member institution and having earned a varsity athletics award in college or having participated in competitive intercollegiate athletics in college, has, by a continuing interest and concern for physical fitness and competitive sport and by personal example exemplified most clearly and forcefully the ideals and purposes to which college athletics programs and amateur sports competitions are dedicated.
Media Contacts:
Growing Power:
Anne Eaton: 414.527.1546 ext.102
NCAA:
Emily Potter: 317.917.6984
More About Will Allen and the NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award
By Michelle Brutlag Hosick
When Will Allen was a lanky seventh-grader in rural Maryland, his lack of coordination and meager basketball skills didn’t deter his middle school basketball coach.
The coach saw only a six-foot four-inch 13-year-old who had a passion for a game he learned on his family’s farm, aiming for a peach basket attached to an old oak tree. Allen fell in love with the game, which he saw as a more exciting alternative to playing the outfield for his middle school baseball team.
That passion led Allen to the University of Miami (Florida) as the school’s first African-American men’s basketball player, a professional hoops career in Europe and eventually his life’s work as an urban farmer and creator of the nonprofit Growing Power.
Allen will be honored with the NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award, the Association’s highest honor, at the 2012 NCAA Convention in Indianapolis. Allen, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” and grants from both the Kellogg and Ford foundations, said the NCAA honor will be particularly special to him.
“I really value this award, because it shows that student-athletes can aspire to be more than just entertainment symbols for people,” said Allen, who will be formally recognized at the Honors Celebration on Jan. 13. “You can do something positive with your life to impact other people’s lives in a different way than just having them watch you play a sport. I hope other student-athletes will realize earlier that there’s more to life than just playing (their sport). You need to start envisioning the day when you’re not playing sports.”
Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, whose concern for the conduct of intercollegiate athletics led to the formation of the NCAA in 1906, the award is given annually to an individual “for whom competitive athletics in college and attention to physical well-being thereafter have been important factors in a distinguished career of national significance and achievement.” Dwight Eisenhower was the first recipient of the “Teddy” in 1967.
Allen’s career almost never got started. By his own admission, he was a terrible basketball player when he started, gifted with height but little else. His own work ethic – and a summer job at a swimming pool next door to the armory where the American University men’s basketball team practiced – developed his skills. From the time he was a rising eighth-grader, Allen spent his summers scrimmaging against college players, eventually holding his own. By the time he graduated from high school, he had more than 100 scholarship offers. He left his family’s farm and swore he’d never return to that life.
He chose Miami for a variety of reasons, including the climate, the diversity of the city and his sense of ease with his future teammates. The fact that he would be the first African-American to play for the school had little influence over his decision. He was comfortable at Miami, and that was it. His first year, he fell in with the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity and met a senior named Cynthia who would become his wife before he finished his sophomore year. He credits both the Zetas and his wife for helping him adjust to college life far from home and family.
He played basketball at Miami from 1967 to 1971 and studied physical education and sociology, with the thought of one day becoming a coach. After graduation, he caught on with a few professional American teams in the NBA and the ABA, but he spent most of his career in Europe. While he was in Belgium, Allen worked on the family farms of several of his teammates.
“When I left the (family) farm at 18, I said, ‘Never again do I want to do this work.’ I think most farm kids are like that. Then I went out with my teammates (in Belgium) and helped them plant potatoes. They farmed the way that we did – without a lot of mechanized equipment. They did everything by hand,” he said. “I realized I had a hidden passion and wanted to farm again.”
When he got back to the States, he worked in sales and marketing for Proctor and Gamble. But he also started growing produce on some land outside of his wife’s native Milwaukee. Eventually, he was growing food on more than 100 acres of land outside the city and purchased the last remaining farm within the city limits to sell his produce in the middle of a food desert.
That presence in the city led to his work with a youth group that wanted to grow an organic garden. Allen helped the kids plan and grow their garden and let them use space on his inner-city farm. It was the summer of 1995 – hot and dry, and the groundhogs kept raiding the plot.
“Every time I thought ‘These kids are going to quit,’ they’d show up in their vans. They wound up growing some really nice crops,” he said. A reporter from the local paper featured Allen and the youth group on the front page, and he began speaking to more and more groups around town, volunteering his time and expertise. Friends talked him into starting Growing Power.
“There is a lot of life-skill-building that happens when kids do a project like this, when they really have to take care of something and nurture something. That struck a chord with people,” Allen said.
Today, Growing Power allows Allen to innovate in the agricultural field, experimenting with composting, vermicomposting and aquaponics. His life’s goal is to broaden access to healthy food.
“I’m proud to say that I’m making a contribution to change people’s lives, especially young people, around the thing that is most important to us: Our food,” Allen said. “I am proud to be able to impact lives and hopefully save lives by influencing people around the world to eat healthier food and be able to grow food in a sustainable way.”
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Links :
http://www.biztimes.com/daily/2011/12/1/ncaa-to-give-roosevelt-award-to-allen
http://hurricanesports.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/120111aaf.html
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/ncaa-honor-goes-to-growing-powers-allen-95398ct-134828463.html
http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=254590
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