Growing Power comes to Toronto

CITY BUILDER IN RESIDENCE
Growing Power from Milwaukee and Chicago

Tuesday April 3rd, 7pm
Innis Town Hall, University of Toronto
2 Sussex Ave., (corner of Sussex and St. George)

The City-Builder-in Residence presents a public talk Will Allen and Erika Allen from Growing Power (Milwaukee and Chicago), will share their experiences using urban agriculture as a tool to advance food security and to build stronger, more inclusive, sustainable communities.

Here’s the backgrounder:

Growing Power is a non-profit organization and land trust with operations in Milwaukee and Chicago. The vision of this organization is “to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time.” Striving to work with community members from diverse backgrounds, Growing Power’s mission is to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food. To achieve this mission, they offer hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstrations, outreach, and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner.

Growing Power’s activities include the operation of community food centres. These local places provide space for participants to learn more about sustainable urban agriculture practices including how to grow, process, market and distribute food. The well-established Milwaukee-based Community Food Center is home to a variety of active demonstrations, including aquaculture, vermiculture, and large-scale composting. Their aquaculture pools grow Tilapia weighing several pounds and it also serves to irrigate greenhouse plants.

Through their Market Basket programme, Growing Power supplies over 100 food-baskets a week to 35 different sites in the Milwaukee area. Distribution to the Chicago area has recently started and is approximately 50 per week. They also have a state-wide programme that distributes over 400 baskets a month going to residents in Illinois, Wisconsin & Michigan. In total, the Market Basket initiative anticipates shipping over 2 million pounds of food this summer.

Growing Power also supports the Rainbow Farmers Coop which establishes market opportunities for small, independent producers of conventional and organic produce that include: greens, herbs, lamb, beef, pork, milk, juice, honey, jam, compost, and “Milwaukee Black Gold” worm castings. A number of Milwaukee and Chicago restaurants are customers as well as a devoted range of citizens.

Growing Power’s founder and Executive Director, Will Allen, is a former American Basketball Association player. Before starting Growing Power, Will was a marketing manager with Procter and Gamble. He has been a farmer all of his life. Erika Allen is the Chicago Projects Manager and she is highly regarded for her experience in multi-cultural alliance building.

The City-Builder-in-Residence is a joint initiative of Ryerson University and the Metcalf Foundation. For more information about this event, please contact Pamela Robinson, School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University, 416-979-5000 ex. 6762.