Growing Power, Inc. Founder and CEO Will Allen to Present "The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities" at Viterbo University April 14

Monday, April 4, 2016

April 4, 2016

Contact Rick Kyte at 608-796-3704 or rlkyte@viterbo.edu

GROWING POWER, INC. FOUNDER AND CEO WILL ALLEN TO PRESENT “THE GOOD FOOD REVOLUTION: GROWING HEALTHLY FOOD, PEOPLE, AND COMMUNITIES” AT VITERBO UNIVERSITY APRIL 14

LA CROSSE, Wis. – Growing Power, Inc. founder and CEO Will Allen will present “The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 14 in the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center Main Theatre.

Allen is an urban farmer who is transforming the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to underserved urban populations. After a brief career in professional basketball and a number of years in corporate marketing at Procter & Gamble, Will Allen returned to his roots as a farmer, using his retirement package to purchase a plot of inner-city land with greenhouses in Milwaukee, where he has built the country’s pre-eminent urban farm.

Today, Growing Power is a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environments in which they live 
by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities. Growing Power is involved in more than 70 projects and outreach programs in Milwaukee, across the United States, and throughout the world. Allen has trained and taught in the Ukraine, Macedonia, and Kenya, and has plans in place to create community food centers in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Haiti. In the U.S., Growing Power has set up multiple Regional Outreach Training Centers.

In 2008, Allen was awarded the John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” and named a McArthur Fellow, only the second farmer ever to be so honored. On Feb. 9, 2010, he was one of four national spokesmen who stood with First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House to launch her “Let’s Move!” initiative to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity by 2015. In May 2010, Time magazine named Allen as one of 100 World’s Most Influential People.

This presentation is free and open to the public and is part of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership Spring Lecture Series. It is being held as part of the Reinhart Institute’s Conference on Food Ethics.

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