When Will Allen unlocked the doors of the former Growing Power in mid-January 2018, everything had frozen, except thousands of fish and a prolific old fig tree. For a while that previous December, amid confusion and uncertainty, the doors of the old Growing Power, at 5500 W. Silver Spring Drive, were locked, and the heaters failed. Facing multiple lawsuits for unpaid bills totaling almost $500,000, Growing Power vanished in a flash after almost 25 years of continuous operation. In December, the Green Veterans Group announced on its Facebook page that it would be taking over Growing Power’s holdings and mission. But that never happened.
In early May, the greenhouses were lush with flowers, herbs, tomatoes and greens, and Allen was back in his element tending plants, fish and worms and cutting greens, graciously welcoming interns, volunteers and reporters, as well as educating the curious and willing—much as he has done for the past quarter-century. The dissolution of the once-mighty Growing Power at the end of 2017 sent a wave of sadness and disbelief through the urban agriculture community in Milwaukee. Allen says he cannot talk about the dissolution of Growing Power because of pending legal matters, but he is forging ahead using his old-new business name of Will Allen’s Roadside Farms & Markets.
A Healing Model
“One of the things I have issues with is the way this story is sometimes being portrayed, that Growing Power was a failure, that [its dissolution] sort of shows how unsustainable these things are,” says Michael Carriere, an associate professor at MSOE (Milwaukee School of Engineering) who specializes in urban agriculture and urban redevelopment. “First and foremost, as an entity, Growing Power lasted 25 years, which is quite a long time for a non-profit. Second, Will [Allen] continues to farm every day.”
Carriere considers the successes of Walnut Way Conservation Corp. in fostering urban redevelopment in Lindsey Heights; and Alice’s Garden—a large urban farm and community garden near 20th Street & Garfield Avenue—part of Allen’s local legacy. He also points to successful farms in Michigan, Florida, South Africa and Haiti that Allen helped develop. “My academic work tends looks at official urban renewal work in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s to see how destructive they were, particularly for communities of color,” Carriere says. “Then you have someone like Will Allen offering an alternative model that is actually healing to the environment.”
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Steve Ventura, an urban agriculture specialist and professor of soil sciences at UW-Madison, agrees that Allen has been an effective educator and exemplar in urban agriculture. “Allen has trained hundreds if not thousands of people in aspects of urban agriculture through his commercial urban ag workshops, internships that he had on the farm and various speaking engagements with organizations and community groups and schools. He was generous in sharing his ideas and inspired many people,” Ventura says.
In 2017, rumors circulated that Allen was retiring, but Ventura suspects that Allen will continue to farm. “I think he’s the kind of person who enjoys working hard. It’s a little hard for me to imagine him kicking back on the beach with a piña colada,” he says. Allen is now 69-years-old.
While Allen continues to grow soil using worms and compost, he appears not to be letting any grass grow under his own feet. Although Allen still declines to talk on the record about what caused Growing Power to fail, some of the lawsuits pending at the end of 2017 are now closed cases. The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions lists William Allen as the registered agent for three new business entities formed in 2018: Will’s Roadside Farms & Markets, LLC; Will Allen Good Food Foundation, Inc.; and Growing Power Milwaukee, LLC. Growing Power, Inc.—organized and registered in 1996—filed articles of dissolution on November 21, 2017.
UWM to House Growing Power’s Archive
During the difficult days last November and December, Carriere, who teaches a class in the history of urban agriculture, helped remove many boxes of Growing Power’s documents that were being stored in an unheated semitrailer on the property. “Once I understood the gravity of the situation, I wanted to make sure that Growing Power’s institutional history wasn’t forgotten or, in this case, literally thrown away,” Carriere says. With Allen’s permission, the papers were taken to MSOE. Last semester, Carriere’s students sorted and organized them. Eventually they will find a permanent home at the UW-Milwaukee Special Collections. “I’m amazed that there’s this much stuff and in relatively good shape to have a really rich archive,” he says.
From 1993 to 1995, Allen operated his business as Will Allen’s Roadside Farm. The fledgling business began by supplying freshly grown food to an undersupplied neighborhood on Milwaukee’s Northwest side before morphing into Growing Power, a multi-sited non-profit that eventually produced 40 million pounds of food and raised 100,000 fish annually. At one time, Growing Power employed 150 people and had 1,500 volunteers.
Allen grew more than food. The tall and charismatic former professional basketball player spread the gospel of urban ag, inspiring a generation of urban farmers in Milwaukee and far beyond with his infectious can-do attitude. The gentle giant also infused his acolytes with practical urban farming know-how. He is serious about getting good food to people who are marginalized—especially people of color. “That’s really important to me,” Allen said. “When we talk about urban agriculture, we are mostly talking about people of color.”
Back to His Roots
Now, Allen has come full circle and is once again doing business as Will Allen’s Roadside Farm. In 1993, Allen bought the Silver Spring Drive site, a former bedding plant nursery, on a stretch of the street once known as “Greenhouse Alley” because it was home to dozens of plant nurseries. Allen’s farm was the last working farm in the city of Milwaukee.
In less than 25 years, Allen, through Growing Power, experienced many successes while pioneering in urban agriculture. For example, in 2008, Allen received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” of $500,000 for his work in urban ag. In 2012, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation awarded Growing Power a five-year grant totaling $5 million to develop and grow operations across the nation to produce locally grown food, train new farmers and provide healthy produce for children and families in low income neighborhoods and communities of color in Detroit, New Orleans, Taos, N.M., and in the Mississippi delta region of Arkansas and Mississippi.
In 2013, Allen was nominated for a NAACP Image Award in the category of biography-autobiography for his book, The Good Food Revolution. In 2014, Growing Power sold 40,000 pounds of carrots, grown at its Jackson, Wis., location, to Wisconsin and Chicago public schools, which was the largest farm-to-school fresh food sale in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Today, he is wrestling with the transition from operating a non-profit to running a for-profit business. “I have big-time skin in the game operating my own business like I am,” Allen says. “I started as for-profit, so now it’s like going back to my roots. I knew nothing about nonprofits when I started Growing Power. My friend said, ‘Well, Will, these kids from the neighborhood are coming to you all the time. Why don’t you start a nonprofit? We’ll help you. We’ll start raising money to work with these kids. I got sucked into that. Now I’m back to how I started.”
Allen says that nonprofits should not be in the business of trying to scale-up urban agriculture. “Nonprofits have to get soft money to operate and you have to have cash flow for a farm to survive,” he says. “It cannot be done by a nonprofit. I did it because I wanted to prove it could be done. I kind of got sucked into it. My thing was to train people in how to grow food. Just about everyone who does urban agriculture in the city came through Growing Power.”
Understanding and respecting Allen’s experience, many development economists believe that a nonprofit, structured properly, or a co-op can also be successful in larger-scale urban agriculture projects.
‘Go Touch the Soil’
Allen shows off a lush fig tree growing inside a greenhouse. It survived for a month or so last winter when the heaters failed while things were topsy-turvy at Growing Power. “See that fig tree?” he asks. “It produces a thousand figs. For some reason, it survived. So, some good things happened,” Allen, ever the optimist, said.
“I never did this for money,” he adds abruptly. “There’s not a lot of money in agriculture on this scale. The people who really make money are the wholesalers and retailers. If the farmer makes 20% on a dollar, that’s good. People ask me, ‘Why do you want to do this? It’s hard work.’ To me, it is a breeze. It is therapy for me to touch the soil every day. I tell that to people who are suffering. Go touch the soil. Eat some of the food that’s not grown with chemicals. You will feel better. I’m not trying to psych them. It’s true. I guarantee you that if you would eat the food that I grow here, your life would change.”
Will Allen says he will continue to give tours and teach kids and people with disabilities. “They love touching the soil,” he says. “I can’t even explain what happens when people come in here and touch the soil. Especially kids with issues.”
