Growing Power

This afternoon I had a meeting at Growing Power, a non-profit organization that works to provide locally grown food to people in Milwaukee and Chicago while promoting urban agriculture. One way the promote this idea is through community gardens. Maple Tree is home to one of these gardens, so a meeting between stakeholders of the community around the school and employees of growing power was held at their farm yesterday afternoon. I meant to take pictures, but decided against it since we didn't have time to take the tour they had told us about in the email.

The best part of this meeting was, without a doubt, the part where I got to meet Will Allen. Will is the founder of Growing Power and has been featured on Oprah's talk show, as well as a guest of honor by Michelle Obama as part of her Let's Move campaign. One can only imagine the look on my face when I was sitting at a table in a greenhouse rocking my mom jeans talking to a pastor, a president of a neighborhood association, and a growing power employee and Will Allen just strides in and starts shaking hands with everyone. It was pretty surreal. I wanted to be a nerd and ask to have my picture taken with him, but decided against it for two reasons: 1) I looked like crap (I learned during my first visit to growing power that wearing nice clothes there is a bad idea, since you will leave smelling like fertilizer), and 2) my hair had become a giant poofball, compliments of the greenhouse we were meeting in.

After the meeting I asked the employee who facilitated our meeting if Growing Power accepts foodstamps. It turns out that not only do they accept foodstamps, but they also accept WIC (a government assistance program similar to foodstamps, but it is only available for mothers and you can only purchase certain foods). I was so elated to hear this and will definitely consider purchasing food there in the future. It's important to help local businesses whenever possible, especially those similar to Growing Power that are doing so much good for the community.