FALL2022 | TOWER 5 schools, scout troops and other youth organizations, teach children about food insecurity, nutrition, agriculture and culinary skills. During the pandemic, virtual programs replaced some in-person events. GROWING A NONPROFIT Paillex studied business at Kutztown University, and the lessons learned as a marketing major have contributed to his success. Drawing on what he learned about the “Four Ps of marketing” as an undergraduate, he talks about the four Ps of building his nonprofit: his passion for gardening, his purpose – helping those faced with food insecurity – backed by a plan to accomplish his goals and the right people to help him achieve them. Applying that idea has allowed a man with no agricultural experience to head an organization centered on farming. “I’m very fortunate that I have very talented people on four corners of the organization,” Paillex says. His work has earned him national and regional recognition. In 2014, he was named a CNN Hero and a Ford Go Further Everyday Hero. He also was a Farm Credit 100 Fresh Perspectives honoree and was recognized as a New Jersey Hero in 2011 at the inaugural swearing-in ceremony for former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Paillex was never in it for the honors: It’s clear that feeding the food insecure is his passion. Clad in a T-shirt and baseball cap in his office on a spring morning, it’s hard to imagine him in the corporate world where he had a successful 17-year career in sales and trade marketing with Unilever Foods. A job relocation brought him to Hunterdon County, N.J., in 2001, the year before he planted his first garden and began donating food. By the time Unilever closed its office there in 2008, Paillex had enlisted volunteers and increased annual food donations to 600,000 pounds. He remembers that he and his wife, Susan, prayed for guidance. He decided that he would leave Unilever. “God had a calling for me to do this, so I walked away from the corporate world,” Paillex says. He established America’s Grow-a-Row as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that year but was years away from being able to call it his job. He began working for PNC Bank in its mortgage division. “I was working 40 hours a week for the bank and 30 to 40 hours a week for Grow-a-Row, just trying to build it up,” Paillex says. In 2011, he remembers wondering how long he could maintain the grueling hours. Then he learned that the bank was closing his division. With his characteristic positive outlook, Paillex called it “an answer to a prayer.” If that was true, what happened next might be called an appearance by a guardian angel. An anonymous philanthropist who had long been interested in America’s Grow-a-Row’s work offered to fund the fledgling nonprofit for the next three years. The donation allowed Paillex to work full time for his organization and to hire staff. “The transition year was 2012,” Paillex recalls. “That allowed us to get a really good, solid foundation for the program. And from there, things just continued to grow.” Chip Paillex ’89 with John Knoble ’88
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