Gulf Coast Doctor, Artist Among Those to Receive Genius Grant

Sept. 23, 2008 — -- Hurricane Katrina may have destroyed Dr. Regina Benjamin's family clinic but it couldn't faze her Hippocratic Oath. Though the storm had left her in a dire financial situation of her own, she began treating people at her rural family health clinic in coastal Alabama for free -- and sometimes for shrimp or oysters.

Benjamin is one of the 25 people being recognized by the Macarthur Foundation for her achievements and epitomizing the boundless human spirit with a $500,000 grant known unofficially as the "Genius Grants." The grant is awarded over a 5-year period.

After Katrina, Benjamin rebuilt her practice with the help of volunteers and donations only to have her clinic burn down to the ground in an unrelated fire. The MacArthur grant money will help Benjamin get back on her feet and continue to serve people in Bayou La Batre, an impoverished fishing village along the Gulf of Mexico. "I want to give some of it to small scholarships for junior high kids to go into health care," she added. "Small town and minority kids don't have the opportunity to go into health care."

Into the Dirt

Another new Macarthur fellow who has raised the human spirit is former basketball player turned urban farmer, Will Allen.

The son of a sharecropper from North Carolina, Allen was the first black basketball player to play for the University of Miami. After graduating in 1971 he went on to play for the American Basketball Association and European basketball leagues. It was while in Europe that Allen had an epiphany. "I wanted a system where all people would have access to safe and healthy food, whether they were millionaires or made $5,000 a year," he said.

Today Allen is the 59-year-old CEO of Growing Power, a farming organization in Milwaukee that uses novel techniques to grow nutritious food within the city limits. The organization supplies fruits and vegetables at affordable prices to urban areas where healthy food is often hard to come by and the lack of such foods have been linked to a rise in obesity and diabetes.

From Pack-Rat to Pack-Art

Tara Donovan likes to collect everyday materials and use them to make statements about society. "I wanted to be an artist at a young age, not fully knowing what that meant," she said.