Kevin Spangler’s Quarter Cow Solution: Leveraging SNAP for Health, Equity, and Local Food

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.

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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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