Will Allen

Will Allen--son of a sharecropper, former professional basketball player, and ex-corporate sales leader--is now CEO of Growing Power, a farm and community food center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He began by teaching people to apply old-fashioned farming principles to vacant city lots and abandoned commercial buildings and has become a leading authority on urban agriculture. Allen promotes the idea that all people should have access to fresh, safe, nutritious food. In 2008 he was named a John D. and… Show more Katherine T. McArthur Foundation Fellow and was awarded a "genius grant"--only the second farmer ever to be so honored. He helped launch First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" program and, in 2010, was added to Time magazine's list of "The World's 100 Most Influential People."

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