ULI Atlanta is pleased to announce the recipient of the Dan and Tally Sweat Community Leadership Award. Bill Bolling will be honored at the 26th Annual ULI Atlanta Awards for Excellence Dinner on May 19 at The Eastern.

The Dan and Tally Sweat Community Leadership Award is given to an individual within the non-profit or public sector who has made a significant contribution to promoting responsible land use in the metropolitan Atlanta region. The first Dan and Tally Sweat Awards was awarded to Renee Glover in 1998 and throughout the years has been awarded to Bernie Marcus, Andrew Young, Hattie Dorsey, Ed McBrayer and most recently Bob Lupton in 2019. Bill joins a notable list of public leaders who have made an outstanding contribution to the Atlanta community and in the creation of thriving communities.

Bolling has devoted his life to the fight against food insecurity throughout Georgia and nationwide. He founded the Atlanta Community Food Bank in 1979 and served as its Executive Director until 2015. In his role, he oversaw the distribution of millions of pounds of food and grocery products each year through a network of more than 600 local congregations and nonprofit organizations that feed the hungry across 29 Georgia counties. He was also instrumental in starting the Georgia Food Bank Association, through which he helped launch eight food banks across the state, serving more than 2,600 congregations and community-based organizations in every Georgia county. Bolling is also a Founder, Chair and Senior Advisor of Food Well Alliance, a collaborative network of growers, community and city leaders working to build thriving community gardens and urban farms across metro Atlanta.

Bolling is a frequent speaker on topics related to sustainability, hunger, poverty, affordable housing and public policy reform. He founded the Atlanta Regional Housing Forum in 1984, and continues to serve as convener and moderator. The forum is a quarterly event that engages stakeholders and leaders on issues ranging from affordable housing to transportation to healthy communities.

Bolling currently co-leads a multi-phase project with Food Well Alliance and the Westside Future Fund to renovate 970 Jefferson, located on the Westside BeltLine Connector at 970 Jefferson Street NW, the former headquarters of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. He helped acquire the building in January 2020 with the goal of preserving the historic property. With Phase 1 complete, 970 Jefferson now serves as an operational hub for several other organizations with a focus on serving the Westside, providing hunger relief and supporting Atlanta’s growing local food movement.

Bolling currently serves on the board of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Inspire Brands Foundation, Convergence, Georgia Forward, the Regional Commission on Homelessness, Atlanta Civic Circle nonprofit news organization and the Deans Council of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. He is past Chair of the Board of the Regional Leadership Forum and the State of Georgia Housing Trust Fund Commission. He is a 2015 inductee into Georgia Trend’s Most Influential Hall of Fame and was named Georgia Trend’s Georgian of the Year in 2012.