SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES THROUGH URBAN FARMING AND VERMICOMPOSTING

Growing Power, started by former professional basketball player Will Allen, is a nonprofit organization and land trust that seeks to build sustainable and equitable food systems. Allen gave up basketball for a marketing job at Proctor & Gamble, but then left the corporate world in 1982 and bought

"the last working farm in Milwaukee." After establishing the farm as a nonprofit, sustainable, equitable urban food source (currently producing 100,000 pounds of chemical-free vegetables per year), he merged it with Growing Power, a training center to reconnect people with the land. The organization teaches people from diverse backgrounds about community food systems through hands-on training and demonstrations.

Growing Power produces vermicompost for sale and hosts monthly workshops on the benefits of vermicomposting and intensive vegetable growing. Since 2000, they've been collecting food waste from grocery stores (Sendik's Food Market) and more recently from local coffee roasters (Alterra Coffee). They also compost meat and fish. There are several greenhouses on its two-acre plot, which among other things house an aquaculture project and the vermicomposting operations. Local students are involved with the vermicomposting. Food waste that cannot be handled by the worm boxes is composted in windrows, or taken to Allen's farm. Visitors and volunteers view and get involved with all aspects of the operations at Growing Power's learning center and farm. The organization is now in Chicago as well, with the possibility to expand to other cities. For more information, visit http://www.growingpower.org or call (414) 527-1546.