Photo: (Left to right) Michael Kiley, Security Benefit Corporation CEO; Elizabeth Oliver-Farrow, The NEA Foundation Board Chair; Will Allen, Growing Power, Inc. CEO; Harriet Sanford The NEA Foundation President & CEO

This award recognizes individuals and organizations for their lifelong commitment to advancing public education and is typically presented to those who work outside the field.

The 2012 Security Benefit Corporation Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education was presented to Will Allen, CEO of Growing Power, Inc. Call him the guru of urban gardening. The son of a sharecropper, Allen grew up on his family’s small farm in the Washington, DC, suburbs. He was the first African-American to receive an athletic scholarship from the University of Miami where some of his records still stand today.

After playing professional basketball for a few years, he became an accomplished corporate salesman. But he soon returned to his roots when he began to run his wife’s family farm outside of Milwaukee. Seeking a site in the city where he could market his wares, Allen bought the last plot zoned for agriculture and realized that he could also plant a garden there. The city’s largest housing project was nearby. Soon, teens from the projects were asking him to help them start their own gardens. It was there that the seeds of Growing Power, Inc., began to sprout.

Allen’s urban farms provide healthy food, education, and jobs to under-served communities. He teaches everyone he encounters to value hard work, self-sufficiency, and self-sustainability. He develops and practices innovation farming techniques such as vermicomposting and aquaponics which dramatically increase the yield in small plots. He empowers communities across the country and around the world.

Watch Allen's acceptance speech. 

Past Award Recipients

2011

Adora Svitak
Author, Global Activist, Student Educator

2010

Jane Goodall
Founder, Jane Goodall Institute
UN messenger of Peace

2009

Sesame Workshop

2008

Tiki Barber
Former NFL star and Literacy proponent

2007

Billie Jean King
Tennis Star and Title IX advocate

2005

President William Jefferson Clinton

2004

Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
Author and Illustrator
The Magic School Bus

2003

Mary Hatwood Futrell
Dean of the George Washington University Graduate School of Education
Former President of the National Education Association

2002

LeVar Burton
Host and Co-Executive Producer
Reading Rainbow

2001

Fred Rogers
Creator and Host
Mister Rogers’ Neighboorhood