A Recipe for Community Health

With SNAP-Ed funding set to expire, Washtenaw County risks losing a low-cost, high-impact program that brought nutrition and joy into classrooms, parks, and farmers markets.

If you have a child in the Washtenaw Intermediate School District, you probably know about the “Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities” program. The program provides direct education to K-5 students throughout a five-week program, focusing on food education. Topics include learning about fruits and vegetables, the importance of physical activity, handwashing, honoring food traditions, and many other related subjects. The kids get excited about the Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities programming in a similar way to how they get excited about arts or music programming – a fun break from normal classroom routines, where they try something new.

Each session involves the kids using their bodies, using their brains, and using their mouths. It starts with a “fit bit,” engaging students’ bodies in fun exercise and “getting the wiggles out” before they settle into the brain portion of the day. The program has a special focus on literacy education, utilizing books about food and activities such as kids creating their own menus to reinforce reading, writing, and grammar skills — all while learning about food and nutrition. Finally, each lesson ends with a recipe-based, sensory-based tasting. This provides a fun, low-stakes opportunity to try new foods, allowing kids to use their mouths to explore new tastes.

What you may not know is that all of this programming is a result of SNAP-Ed funding–funding which has recently been drastically reduced, putting the continued existence of programs like these in peril. Danielle Dros is the program lead for SNAP-Ed programs in the Washtenaw Intermediate School District, and she shared with me the broad impact that the program has in the Washtenaw area. The Healthy Schools Healthy Communities program reached about 3,000 students in the area, across thirteen schools and 146 classrooms (in just the last year!). But that program is only one part of the program’s direct education initiatives (which in turn are only one part of the broader program).

In addition to the school year program, there is also a summer “rec connect” program, a physical activity-based program which operates at six sites, including Ypsi library branches and Ypsi Community Schools summer schools. The program is a game-based, six-lesson series that explores a different movement each week, such as hula hoops, jump ropes, or yoga. Each lesson also includes tastings, where students engage in activities such as trying three different kinds of apples and rating them based on their taste.

The last component of the direct education is their Farmers Market Food Navigator program, which partners with the Whitmore Lake Farmers Market every other Sunday. A SNAP-Ed staff member sets up and provides resources to help people understand how to sign up for SNAP, how to use their SNAP benefits, give out food samples, share recipes, and understand what’s in season and how to store produce. (If you’ve been following the other articles in this series, this is the same role that Cassian Lethe plays at the Ypsilanti Farmers Market.)

In addition to direct education initiatives, SNAP-Ed also works on community strategies (formerly known as policy, systems, and environmental change) and indirect education. Some of their work in community strategies has involved helping Whitmore Lake Farmers Market get a card reader to be able to accept SNAP (a major hurdle for small markets), partnering with Superior Township’s Fireman’s Park to improve an underutilized park space, revamping the Ypsi Community Schools wellness policy, partnering with local food pantries to use the Healthy Food Pantry Assessment Tool to evaluate what the pantries are doing well and where there is room for improvement, and supporting with community data collection for the new Ypsilanti Peace Neighborhood Resource Center.

In their partnership with Superior Township, SNAP-Ed staff provided the logistical support to help the township understand what the surrounding neighborhood would like to see in the park. In 2022 and 2023, they knocked on doors and took surveys. After collecting the data, they turned it into a visually appealing and easily readable report, which they provided to the parks and recreation department. The parks department was then able to use the report to ask the township to allocate more funds for the park renovation, and their advocacy was successful. As a result, in 2024, the parks department was able to add a younger kids playground, an older kids playground, benches, outdoor exercise equipment, and a walking trail.

This year, SNAP-Ed again partnered with the Superior Township parks department, as well as the township’s library, to create a story walk on the new walking trail. Story walks combine reading and physical activity by displaying a children’s book, page by page, along an outdoor path. All books used for the story walk are SNAP-Ed approved, allowing kids and their families to learn about healthy food while enhancing their literacy skills and enjoying quality time in nature.

The final component of SNAP-Ed’s community work is its indirect education programs. While direct educational programs focus on reaching kids in schools, the indirect education programs allow SNAP-Ed to have a presence in the community. They attend both school-based and community-based tabling events, such as the upcoming Annual Parkridge Summer Festival/Joe Dulin Community Day in Ypsilanti on August 23rd and the Kite and Rocket Day at Fireman’s Park. When they table, they offer tastings and recipes, information about the programming in schools, and fun swag. They also partner with the CSA Food Navigator Program to table during pickup times for the Argus Farm Stop and Farm at Trinity Health CSA boxes, providing a recipe that features the produce in the CSA box for that week and offering further information about the SNAP-Ed program. This, along with all of their other work, provides resources not only to people who are direct recipients of SNAP benefits, but also to all community members. Programs like SNAP-Ed benefit everyone, including individuals who may never realize they are benefiting from them.

At the end of our interview, Danielle shared that this article feels, in many ways, like a eulogy for the program. The current funding for the program only goes through September 30, 2025. After that, its existence is in peril unless the Michigan Fitness Foundation (which administers SNAP-Ed) can find an alternative source of funding for it. This is the kind of program where a very small dollar amount goes a long way, and Danielle still has hope that the state and/or other national organizations with vested interests in food access will step in to fill the funding gap. Hopefully, Danielle’s dream comes true, and we don’t lose such a valuable program forever.

This post is part of a series by Emma Rose Hardy, a PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan and the Rackham Local Food Systems Intern at Growing Hope. The series aims to highlight the essential role that SNAP and other food assistance programs play in the Washtenaw County local food system.

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From Dream to Legacy

By Julius Buzzard • July 1, 2026

Introducing the growing hope accelerator kitchen!

Return of the Tuesday Market

By Julius Buzzard • June 1, 2026

Beloved community, June is alive in Ypsilanti, and so are we! The farm is buzzing with pollinators, heavy with the first fruits of the season, keeping the produce cart full, and tended by caring hands, sowing hope along with each seed. At the same time, the MarketPlace is filling back up with color and noise with the joy of neighbors who have looked forward to the market all winter. We have so much to celebrate this season! Namely, the Tuesday Farmers Market is back! Starting tomorrow (June 2), the Ypsilanti Farmers Market will run not only on Saturday mornings, but also every Tuesday from 3 to 7 pm, through August, right here at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace. That means every week we’ll have two opportunities to invest in our local food system while building the community care that makes a market special. This matters more than it might seem on the surface. Many community members have shared that while they love the Ypsilanti Farmers Market, want to support local farmers and makers, and believe in local food, Saturday mornings simply do not work for their lifestyles. Saturday mornings may be reserved for overtime shifts or soccer games, or to recover from a week that didn’t seem to give anything back. For some, they can only get the financial assistance or translation services needed to fully participate on a weekday. For many of our neighbors, Saturday mornings are simply not free. Access can only be actualized when every community member experiences it. It’s as much about time as it is about proximity. We've always said that the Ypsilanti Farmers Market is for everyone in our community, and the Tuesday market is our effort to live that out more fully. The Ypsilanti Farmers Market, in each step toward the future, is a step toward a living vision we have built together. Toward a vision of the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace as a community food hub, an anchor in the life of our city and of our local food system. A place where neighbors come together, build community, and leave united; all while gathering around food. The Ypsilanti Farmers Market is not purely about simple transactions. It’s about practicing what it looks like for a community to feed itself. It nurtures spaces where farmers can move their harvest and where small businesses can grow. The Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace is fostering that mid-week run-in with a neighbor, reminding us that we are not alone. We are grateful to the farmers, vendors, and partners who said yes to this. And we are grateful to our entire market team, who make it possible week after week, with devotion and creativity that continues to humble me. This spring, our Teen Leadership Program launched our second Seed Library, located at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace, which is available to the community at every market. Because everyone deserves a chance to grow. Seeds hold within them the agricultural knowledge of generations, the food traditions of all of humankind. When we talk about seed sovereignty, we are not simply speaking about the practical reality of who controls the global seed supply (the four corporations that control 60% of the seed and pesticide supply). Rather, it goes a level deeper into the question of who and what gets to be remembered. "Farmers are literally archivists of the land." -Abena Offeh-Gyimah Seeds are stories. They are living reminders of all the ancestors who walked before us. When we save and share seeds, we are practicing reciprocity with Mother Earth, and with one another. The seed library that our teens built is just the beginning. Our hope is that it grows into a circular system . We dream of a future where the seed library at the farm and MarketPlace are filled with self-labeled packets of seeds saved from the harvest of our community. We dream of a food future that sits in the hands of the very community that tends it. This is seed rematriation in practice, and I’m excited to grow with you. In solidarity, Julius P.S. Your support makes this food system possible, whether it is financial, volunteer, or saving seeds; we’re in this together. Keep an eye out for future newsletters for a hands-on seed-saving workshop later this year.

Food is A Right and Community is Medicine

By Julius Buzzard • May 1, 2026

Beloved community, May has arrived, and Southeast Michigan has exhaled into spring. As seedlings begin to sprout and Mother Earth does her thing, After a long winter of waiting, there is something deep inside each of us that leans toward the light. And I think it’s crucial that we lean into that light after so much darkness. That we lean into what it means to reach towards what we need and deserve, not simply an act of grace, but as a right of every living organism. This spring, I want to lean into the right to food. Sometimes, the most radical ideas are also the simplest. The right to food means every person, regardless of zip code, income, skin color, or the circumstances of their birth, has the inherent right to access sufficient, safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food. And it doesn’t start at the dinner table. It incorporates the farmer who needs land to grow, the farmworker who deserves a living wage, and the maker who wants to build the food business of their ancestors' dreams. The right to food means that spaces such as the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace and Growing Hope Urban Farm are part of community infrastructure. The right to food is a whole-systems claim that urges us to stop seeing hunger as a distribution issue and instead recognize it as an issue of who is invited to the table. This is not a novel idea. The right to food has been recognized in international law since 1948, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined it as part of every person's right to an adequate standard of living. It was further codified in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which is legally binding for 172 countries. Notably, our country has been missing from that list. While enough food is produced to feed everyone, and still, up to 720 million people experience hunger, and 2.6 billion cannot afford a healthy diet. Today, one in seven residents in Washtenaw County questions where their next meal will come from. This represents a failure of will, not imagination. It’s the result of systems that treat food as a commodity rather than a birthright. But we don’t have to accept that as the finish line. There are multiple states and communities within our country that have codified the right to food, and we’d love for you to join us in advancing and declaring this right in our community. By treating food insecurity as a rights violation rather than a personal failing, we shift the policy debate from political aspiration to human obligation. It’s this shift, from charity to solidarity, that lines the foundation of Growing Hope’s work. Just a few days ago, we sent a group of staff, partners, and volunteers to Lansing to walk through the doors of power and speak with honesty and humility. We talked about what the right to food means on the ground. We talked about what we believe Michigan can do. We advocated for systems that uphold the right to food for every aspect of the food system. Importantly, we left knowing that we are not alone in this. Across the country, community organizers are rallying around this core principle. As one organizer stated, “We need to state the obvious right now, because the systems we relied on are being eroded very actively." We are not growing gardens. We are growing self-determination. We are growing community. We are Growing Hope. I said at the beginning that food is a right, and I believe that with everything in me. Unfortunately, rights don't enforce themselves. They require community to join together, to ensure accountability, and to be a continual reminder of what we are committed to. This is the community we are building. We invest and believe so deeply in this viewpoint for one simple reason, which feels more true now than ever before: community is medicine. Together we share some ailments, but our collective resources are innumerable. And while we don’t know where we’ll end up on the other side of the change and chaos swirling around us, we can be certain that we’ll arrive together. Proximity and hope are foundational building blocks for a community of healing. This is the type of community that demands systems of care that uphold our basic human rights, while sharing its resources to meet our collective needs. Together, we are growing food. We are gathering. We are ensuring the right to food. And we are healing one another through community. We are watching the systems we have long depended on fray at the edges in real time. We are responding, in unison, saying: we are not waiting for permission to be fed. That is the work. Thank you for being part of it. In solidarity, Julius P.S. The right to food is more than a principle. It's a promise we make to one another. You can read our Right to Food Declaration, add your name, and share your story (with a chance to win a $50 gift card) at growinghope.net/righttofood .

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