Innovating for Inclusion: Lessons from Old City Acres on Digital SNAP Access

Kevin Spangler, who runs Boober Tours pedi-cap service in Ann Arbor, has had a long journey with his own health and relationship with food. He now has a successful business and relies on food as his medicine, but there was a time when he was out of work, on disability, and not eating well. He then received SNAP (Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program) and DUFB (Double Up Food Bucks) benefits for three months, and this allowed him to turn both his health and his life around. He now views himself as a completely different person, and works to help his pedi-cab drivers also navigate healthier choices and, for those on SNAP, to make their benefits stretch the furthest. When Kevin first started receiving SNAP and DUFB, he wasn’t eating particularly healthily. But then he started shopping at the grocery store instead of party stores, and then began only shopping the perimeter of the grocery store where the fresh, less-processed foods are. He worked for a time at Silvio’s Organic Pizzeria, where he first learned about the Slow Food Movement–a movement which began in Italy but is now worldwide, and which emphasizes “good, clean, and fair food for all,” especially through local food and traditional cooking. Kevin was so inspired by what he had learned that in 2016, he wrote an article about the Slow Food Movement for Groundcover News , a street newspaper that gives a platform to underrepresented voices in Washtenaw County. He then started shopping almost exclusively at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market and following a carnivore diet, eating almost exclusively organic meat (with the occasional organic fruit). Organic meat can be expensive, but Kevin has found innovative ways to make his money stretch the furthest. One way Kevin stretches his money is by buying ground beef and organ meats from Whitney Farmstead , a 100% grass-fed regenerative ranch in Webster Township. These cuts are full of nutrition and just as high-quality as anything else, but less popular than things like steaks, and therefore much cheaper. Another way Kevin stretches his money is by working together with his pedi-cap drivers, who were also receiving SNAP benefits. Over time, he has had around ten drivers who were temporarily receiving SNAP, and they pooled their money together to buy a quarter cow from Baseline Farm for $1100. When buying a quarter cow, the cow is slaughtered on demand, and the butcher is able to customize the cuts based on the purchaser’s cutting instructions. Buying beef this way is a great way to both support local farmers and to get premium local meat at a substantial per-pound discount. Buying an entire quarter cow (or a half or a full one!) is much cheaper per pound than buying individual cuts of meat, but it requires a substantial up-front investment. No individual SNAP recipient would be able to pay that much at once, but Kevin was inspired by his experience at a sober living community in Nevada, pooling together SNAP benefits to be able to buy things cheaper in bulk. So Kevin and his drivers, each receiving a different amount of benefits, pooled their money together to buy an entire quarter of a cow and split the meat amongst themselves. A quarter cow is a lot of meat–around 100 pounds–and you can get even more meat from it when you’re willing to use all of the cow–things like organ meat and suet–which Kevin and his drivers do. Kevin says that it can be difficult at first to help people use their benefits in an efficient and healthy way, because of both a lack of desire to eat healthy and a lack of education about how to budget, invest, pay bills, and, in general, use money wisely. While he was receiving SNAP benefits and getting his business up and running, he needed to be extremely frugal. He made sure to max out on his DUFB by using them over the course of the month at the farmers market (there is a per-day cap on how much fresh produce you can have double benefits for), and only ever bought what he knew he would eat that week to eliminate any food waste. Kevin passes these health and financial values on to his pedi-cap drivers, and over time many of the people he works with have been inspired by how he eats. It took him 20 years to start figuring out his own health, so he knows how difficult it can be and likes being able to use his own experience to help guide his drivers as they start their own health journeys. Kevin is now a successful, health-focused business owner, but it was a long journey to get here. Having access to SNAP and DUFB benefits was essential for getting him up on his feet, and he had the business savvy to be able to stretch those benefits and use them to their fullest potential. He is a great example of the ways in which, through careful budgeting and intentional buying, local, organic food can be accessible to people depending on SNAP and DUFB benefits. 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.

At Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, food access and equity are central to the mission of building a robust local food system. The Argus food access team, Tess Rian, Mara Logan, and Rosie Estes, aim to make using food assistance at Argus as easy as possible and also to educate Argus staff, customers, and broader community members about the important role that food assistance plays in the local food economy. During recent store renovations, it was super important to the food access team that “EBT Welcome” be very clearly displayed on the street-facing awning of the store. Part of the aim of this is to change assumptions about “who is in our community.” Many people see both Ann Arbor and local food as domains of the privileged, but Ann Arbor is also a city full of students and young families, both of whom frequently use SNAP benefits at Argus. Once SNAP customers are in the door, the food access team aims to make using SNAP as simple as possible and to make the money go as far as possible. Argus does this by offering heavily subsidized weekly produce boxes and by giving 50% off all fresh produce. The weekly produce box is a selection of 6-9 items selected by the staff, and includes detailed information about the contents of the box, including possible recipes. For non-SNAP customers, the boxes are currently $30, but for SNAP customers, the boxes are currently less than $10. The food access team designates 100 boxes a week to be available at a discount to SNAP customers, but currently, there are fewer customers than those who have requested to receive the boxes. If you are a SNAP recipient interested in a discounted Argus Farm Stop produce box subscription, please email hub@argusfarmstop.com to set it up! For non-subscription produce purchases, in the state of Michigan, the Double Up Food Bucks Program allows SNAP customers to make their money go twice as far when purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables. For every dollar they spend, they receive a “matching” dollar from Double Up, effectively making produce half off. However, the Double Up program has a daily limit of $20 and has been susceptible to disruption. During the height of COVID, the daily limit was temporarily suspended, but then the program itself was temporarily suspended altogether from August to December 2022. When the program resumed in 2023, the daily benefit was reduced by half (from $20 to $10) from January to September. In October of 2023, the program was returned to $20 and has remained at that level since then. However, due to the previous changes and disruptions, SNAP customers have a hard time planning for what their benefits will continue to be. Argus aims to fill this gap by supplementing their own matching funds to give SNAP customers 50% off of all fresh produce, with no daily limit. This allows customers to buy the produce that they need when they need it. Argus funds this matching program through internal fundraising; for the past three years, they have done a “Round Up at the Register” campaign, which last year raised about 10k in just one month. A strong majority of customers choose to round up, which demonstrates that the local food community understands the value of making local food more accessible to more people. The Argus food access team cares deeply about the impact their work is making, and checks in with customers using EBT cards at the farm stop about their experiences. They have received an overwhelmingly positive response about every aspect of the program, including both Double Up Food Bucks and the Argus discounted produce box subscription. The customers report being able to have access to fresher, healthier, and tastier food, which has expanded the kinds of produce regularly included in their dietary practices. At the Farm Stop Conference in March 2025, put on by Argus, one of the most-attended sessions was on food access, co-presented by Tess Rian, one of the food access coordinators at Argus, and Noah Fulmer, a senior fellow at the Fair Food Network . The session was attended by farm stop owners and entrepreneurs from all across the country, all of whom had tremendous energy and enthusiasm for making food access a central part of their own farm stops. This highlights the importance of maintaining robust food assistance programs that can integrate with smaller, locally-focused businesses like Argus Farm Stop. 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.