Wick Park gears up for ‘green’ festival

The festival will feature entertainment, healthy food, a farmer’s market and more.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Will Allen, founder of Growing Power and an expert on urban farming, will be the keynote speaker at the Grey to Green Festival in Wick Park in Youngstown on Saturday.

Allen, recipient of the 2008 MacArthur Genius Award and recently featured in New York Times Magazine, will speak at 11 a.m. in the pavilion in Wick Park.

Allen also will participate in a panel discussion, “Economics, ‘Food Racism’ and Urban Agriculture,” at 3 p.m. in the Unitarian Universalist Church across from the park on Elm Street.

The appearance is sponsored by Grow Youngstown, Youngstown State University and the Raymond John Wean Foundation.

The Grey to Green Festival features entertainment, educational exhibits, children’s activities, “green” vendors, healthy food, a farmers market, Magic Carpet Theater, composting, artists, energy- assessment activities, recycled products and a Wick Park historic tour.

Growing Power, with headquarters in Milwaukee, 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.

On two acres in Milwaukee, Allen has 14 greenhouses that produce compost, yellow perch, tilapia, sprouts, greens, tomatoes, livestock (hundreds of thousands of red wigglers, some goats, ducks, bees and turkeys) and more using low-tech, closed-loop systems that incorporate aquaponics and intensive composting.