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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Rooted Again: A National Farmers Market Week Reflection

By Julius Buzzard • August 1, 2026

Beloved community, As we enter the final weeks of summer and back into the rhythm of the school year, it’s impossible not to recognize how hard it’s been to breathe as of late (in every sense). A few short weeks ago, smoke drifted down from wildfires burning across Ontario and settled over Southeast Michigan with force. As air quality alerts stacked on top of heat advisories, everyone from youth to elders was advised to mask up or otherwise remain indoors. In the same stretch, Michigan’s cyclospora outbreak kept climbing past six thousand confirmed cases. Understandably, many have been left feeling paralyzed. Clean air and safe food are not amenities; they are the foundation on which we build food sovereignty. Right now, it feels like that foundation is beginning to crumble, and crumble beneath some more than others. The folks breathing the worst air and eating the least trustworthy food are disproportionately Black, brown, Indigenous, low-income, elderly, young, or some combination of all of it. This pattern is known as environmental racism, meaning the way pollution, contamination, and environmental harm land hardest on communities of color and low-income communities. Whether it’s a decision about a permit, protective rights, or a pipeline, this happens by design. Last month, for example, Michigan's environmental agency approved permits allowing Enbridge to build a new tunnel for the Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, locking in another 99 years of fossil fuel infrastructure running beneath the largest freshwater system on the planet. While this devalues, or even ignores, the long-term health of our climate, economies, and water (another foundational element to life), the environmental harm of this decision is just the tipping point. Construction threatens ground that includes Native American burial sites, and tribes are being handed what one Native American Rights Fund attorney representing Bay Mills Indian Community called an agonizing choice between digging up and recovering their own ancestors before bulldozers arrive, or leaving that work to the state once construction starts. That same attorney, David Gover, put it plainly: "What is more sacred than how we treat our dead?" The grief, rage, and anxiety showing up in our community as a result of these compounding factors is real, merited, and inextricably tied to what’s happening to the land, water, and air on which we, and our food, depend. But it’s not the end of the story. Behind Growing Hope's mission is a strongly rooted belief that communities deserve autonomy within the entirety of their food system. You cannot separate a just food system from a just relationship to place. The cure to systems that poison our air, contaminate our food chains, and desecrate sacred ground is hope that is deeply seeded in community. It's in building a local food system that celebrates the growers, land stewards, and makers that paint a portrait of a vibrant local food system. And that's what a farmers market is, when you get down to it. It's a supply chain you can see with your own eyes. It’s names you know and fields you can visit. It’s fresh produce that arrives from caring hands just moments away from home. It's food grown by people accountable to this community. And when we feel betrayed by the very air and food we need to survive, this is all more important than ever. That’s why I’m excited that this is reaching you right on the edge of National Farmers Market Week, August 2-8, formally proclaimed by the Ypsilanti City Council at their last meeting. Come join us in our weekly celebration of local food at the Ypsilanti Farmers Markets on Saturdays, 9a-1p, at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace (16 S. Washington St.) Underneath all of it (the smoke, the cyclospora headlines, the pipeline permits) is us. A community vying for a food system where we can gather, cook, and grow together without fear. See you at the market, Julius P.S. Even if you can’t join us to celebrate National Farmers Market Week on Saturday, August 8, you can share your thoughts and help us plan for the future (even get entered to win a great prize) by completing our annual market survey .

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.

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