465: Bobby Wilson on Five Acres in Atlanta.
Empowering a community through the benefits of growing food in the middle of the city.
Bobby is the President and CEO of Metro Atlanta Urban Farm, founded to use as a teaching tool, economic empowerment zone, and as a food production site for the southwest Metropolitan Atlanta area. He promotes the benefits of urban agriculture in food deserts with a farming model that works to decrease the number of food insecure families through education on planting, cultivating, and cooking fresh produce.
Bobby was formally the Program Director for The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension/Atlanta Urban Gardening Program (AUGP) that offers gardening instruction and support to more than three hundred gardens located at public housing complexes, shelters, schools, churches and elder care facilities in metro Atlanta. He is also the Past President of the American Community Gardening Association which is a bi-national organization
In This Podcast:
After running the Cooperative Extension Program for Urban Gardening in Atlanta, and taking leadership roles in several other community organizations, Bobby Wilson was not going to stop when he retired! Instead he invested his retirement money into a farm and has transformed it in a community resource with education and community plots along with the production agriculture. He has a huge vision for what his team can accomplish.
Listen in and learn about:
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- What urban agriculture is to him
- How a few years ago it was a bad to mention “urban agriculture”
- Investing his retirement money in a farm because of the people he interacted with
- The reasons he thinks urban agriculture is so important
- A description of what a visitor would see at their farm
- How he has community garden plots as well as production agriculture on the property
- They have provided food to more than 5600 needy people and families
- The collaboration efforts of others in the community that are making an impact
- A moment when a kid that fulfilled a significant amount of community service hours came back to show how he completed his GED
- As an ICBO (Independent Community Based Organization) and how they worked with University of Cornell Lab of Ornithology to make the books
- A call for every politician to read and use the workbooks created
As well as:
His failure – Trying to get two very different schools to work together in the garden and get to know each other
His success – Getting a large group of community stakeholders together to help create a significant STEM program at the MAUF farm
His drive – Passion. The love for the people. Doing what is right. Being someone who can point others in the right direction.
His advice – Believe in yourself, your vision, your dream, and the mission in front of you. Keep feeding people through urban gardening and urban agriculture
Books written by Bobby
“Meaningful collaborations Partnership for impact”
“Senior Community Gardens”
How to reach Bobby:
Website: TheMetroAtlantaUrbanFarm.com
Address: 3271 Main Street, College Park, GA
Email: bobbymauf@gmail.com
Special Offer:
This contest is closed. We say “Thank You” to Bobby Wilson and the University of Cornell Lab of Ornithology for this offer.
UrbanFarm.org/bobbywilson
I loved the episode with Bobby Wilson and would love to win a copy of his book. Such an inspiring interview
My community garden would love to have Mr. Wilson’s book.
Just listened to this podcast with Mr. Wilson and I do believe that God directed me here. As a retired pastor and and gardener I just wanted to say thank you for this interview. Yes, I would love to win his book so I can read it and share it.
Slalom,
John Longard
Thank you John, we enjoyed getting to know Bobby too. We would love to enter you into the book giveaway contest – however you need to send us the email to podcast@urbanfarm.org with the proper subject line.