Will Allen

About Will Allen

Will’s Roadside Farms & Markets

2001 E. Drexel Ave.
Oak Creek, WI  53154
Phone:  414-308-8565
Email: farmerwillallen@gmail.com
farmerwillallen.com

Will Allen is an urban farmer who is transforming the planning, cultivation, production and delivery of organic, healthy food to urban and rural populations.  As the son of a southern sharecropper and former professional basketball player, ex-corporate sales leader and longtime farmer, he is recognized as a national/international leader in urban and rural agriculture and food policy.  After a career in professional basketball and a number of years in corporate sales and marketing at Proctor & Gamble, Will returned to his roots as a farmer in 1993 and purchased the last remaining registered farm in the City of Milwaukee, where he established and functions as farmer, Founder and CEO of the world’s preeminent urban farm and for-profit organization Will’s Roadside Farms & Markets.

In 2008, Allen was a John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow and “genius grant” winner.  In 2010, Time Magazine name Allen to its list of 100 World’s Most Influential People.  A member of the Clinton Global Initiative, he was invited to the White House and to join First Lady Michelle Obama in launching “Let’s Move!” – her signature leadership program to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in America.  In 2010, Allen received the Key to the City of Milwaukee, presented by Mayor Tom

Barrett.  In 2011, Allen received The James Beard Award.  In 2015, he was selected to the National Organic Standards Boards’ Hydroponic/Aquaponic USDA Taskforce.  Allen also attended the Milan Expo 2015 in Italy as part of the U.S. Professional Delegation led by First Lady Michelle Obama.  In 2016, the Good Food Award was given to Lakefront Brewery’s Growing Power Farmhouse Pale Ale.

Allen’s autobiography, The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People and Communities (C. Random House, Penguin/Gotham Books) was published in 2012 and received the Silver Medal Award from Axiom Business Books. The book was nominated for Outstanding Literary Word for a NAACP Image Award in 2013.  The Good Food Revolution is being used as a college textbook across the nation.

In the world of basketball and sports, Allen was given the highest honor that can be bestowed to a college athlete, the Theodore Roosevelt Award from the National College Athletic Association with his name enshrined at the NCAA Hall of Legends. A member of the University of Miami Hall of Fame, Allen has been bestowed eight honorary doctorates from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Marquette University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, School of Freshwater Sciences, University of Miami, Florida, Hofstra University and the Medical College of Wisconsin, University of Miama, Florida 2021 Trail Blazer Award. Received an honorary doctorate from The National University Of Natural Medicine (Doctor of Humane Letters on June 30, 2018

He has been given the National Education Association Security Benefit Corporation Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education in recognition of his work with children, teachers and schools.

Teacher of the History of Urban Agriculture at The Milwaukee School Of Engineering.

The First African American Basketball Player at the University Of Miami,Fla. (Played from 1967 – 1971)

Allen has been named one of the World’s Most Powerful Foodies by Michael Pollan and Forbes magazine.

Proud winner of the Donald Driver Award October 2017.

Will Allen continues to do his work at Will’s Roadside Farms and Markets in Milwaukee, WI to bring Good Food to people all over the world to help end poverty.  Many people call Will Allen the modern-day George Washington Carver. 

In 2019 Will Allen started a Hemp/CBD business, offering the finest in organic Hemp and CBD Products with his own Farmer Will Allen CBD Brand.