WILL ALLEN may have grown up poor, but he was never hungry.

For the second youngest of seven kids, life on a rural Maryland farm was all about hard work, family pride and good food.  “We learned not to give up when things got tough;’ he says, “and we were self-sufficient.”  Will’s hard work paid off at school — he earned a basket­ball scholarship, which led to a stint in the now defunct American Basketball Association.

Ultimately Will hung up his sneakers for a suit and tie, taking a job in marketing.  But after a decade in the corporate world, he realized something was missing.  “I needed the farm — it’s so real and so satisfying,” he says. “Mostly, I wanted that life for my kids.”

When offered a generous exit package from Procter & Gamble in 1982, Will took the money, and grabbed the last working farm In Milwaukee.  His $80,000 stake was just a seed. “I ended up investing nearly $1 million over 10 years.” Will’s three kids — two daughters, then 8 and 13, and a then 10-year-old son — grew tip working the 100-acre farm alongside their parents. “Tomatoes, squash, peppers, pumpkins, watercress, -- you name it, we grew it,” laughs V/ill.  As promised, the work was grueling “I had to work every summer while my friends had fun,” remembers Will’s son Jason, now an attorney.  “Up every morning at 4 am, I complained plenty” adds Jason.  But that work ethic helped him get a scholarship, and into law school.”  Today the Allen kids are grown, and Will is 53. The farm produces over 100,000 pounds of chemical— free vegetables and distrib­utes close to 2 million more through his roadside stand. 

We’re marketing to the poor; the food—insecure areas,” he says. And he is still a believer in the power of farming to shape lives. All kids, particularly poor city ones, are welcome to come by to volunteer and learn, “These kids are going to have to be tough enough to stick to something.  Farming really helps you do that.”

Three years ago Will merged the farm with a nonprofit training center: Growing Power. To date, he has taught farming and food processing to more than 1,000 students and helped launch more than 25 urban gardens, some in the poorest counties in the U.S.

“We’re not just growing food, were growing communities."