Urban farming

What a great guy. His efforts will be copied in other cities, I hope.
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WILL ALLEN may have grown up poor, but he was never hungry.
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For the second youngest of seven kids, life on a rural Maryland farm was all about hard work, family pride and good food. "We learned not to give up when things got tough;' he says, "and we were self-sufficient." Will's hard work paid off at school ?- he earned a basket­ball scholarship, which led to a stint in the now defunct American Basketball Association.
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Today the Allen kids are grown, and Will is 53. The farm produces over 100,000 pounds of chemical?- free vegetables and distrib­utes close to 2 million more through his roadside stand.
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We're marketing to the poor; the food?-insecure areas," he says. And he is still a believer in the power of farming to shape lives. All kids, particularly poor city ones, are welcome to come by to volunteer and learn, "These kids are going to have to be tough enough to stick to something. Farming really helps you do that."
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Three years ago Will merged the farm with a nonprofit training center: Growing Power. To date, he has taught farming and food processing to more than 1,000 students and helped launch more than 25 urban gardens, some in the poorest counties in the U.S. "We're not just growing food, were growing communities."
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http://growingpower.org/will_allen.htm
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The Vision
Growing Power inspires communities to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time.
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The Mission
Growing Power, Inc. is a non-profit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environment in which they live by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food. This mission is implemented by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner.
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http://growingpower.org/index.htm