This Place Is Magic

Integrating Food Access and Preventive Care at The Farm at Trinity Health Ann Arbor

Loren Sanders, the Food Program Coordinator at The Farm at Trinity Health Ann Arbor, knows that the problems of food access and health are systemic, and that dealing with hospital bureaucracy and insurance can make patients feel uncared for. But one of her main goals is “to make at least one patient’s experience better, and to show them that the hospital really does care about each patient.” She emphasized that the hospital, which was founded by the Sisters of Mercy, genuinely aims to care for the poor, and that anyone can come and receive services, regardless of insurance coverage. Although she hates the cliche, she says that the farm truly is magic – that there is magic both in having this massive green space in the middle of the city, and magic in being able to tell anyone who comes to the farm “yes you can”– whether it’s picking a vegetable, walking around the green spaces, or taking food from the food pantry.

The farm itself is five fenced-in acres, with 1.2 acres in production, including four hoop houses (one of which is the nation’s first accessible hoop house) and a propagation house, but the work of the seven full-time farm staff extends far beyond that acreage. They also maintain the rest of the green space of the Trinity Health campus – an impressive 340 acres, making it one of the largest green spaces in Washtenaw County. They have been maintaining the trails, installing improved signage, and collaborating with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Huron River Watershed Council to enhance the green space for the benefit of all community members.

The farm has a flower garden, which was started around 2017 by a hospital staff member who wanted to grow flowers for patient bouquets. Since then, the flower garden has expanded, and the staff can bring 50 bouquets a week to the nurses' station in the hospital, which the nurses then distribute to their patients. Flowers aren’t just pretty – there is evidence that patients with flowers or plants in their room experience better health outcomes, such as lower blood pressure, less pain, and less anxiety.

The majority of what the farm grows on-site goes to their farm stand in the hospital lobby, where hospital staff can shop during their lunch breaks. Anything which goes unsold at the farm stand is then passed on to the Patients and Providers Program, a donation-based program which serves food pantries such as EMU’s Swoops Food Pantry, the Hope Clinic Food Program, and the Packard Health Fresh-a-Sprout FREE Fresh Food Markets.

The farm share program at the Farm at Trinity Health Ann Arbor is an aggregate CSA program, meaning that while some of the produce is grown on the farm, most of the produce is sourced from other local farms. This expands the range of available produce in the boxes and also means that, rather than focusing on being a production farm, they can use their own space to focus on health education. The Farm at Trinity Health Ann Arbor works with its partner farms during the winter to plan the following season’s crops, providing the smaller farms with a guaranteed buyer and the ability to build up their capacity.

The CSA currently serves 500 members, 400 of whom receive their boxes at no cost. The farm would love to be able to provide more boxes, but they’re currently limited by the practical constraints of their fridge size. The subsidized boxes go to Meals on Wheels clients (older adults who are homebound and unable to prepare meals for themselves), participants in the Ypsilanti Family Empowerment Program (which helps to improve the health and wellness of families living in Ypsilanti Housing Commission complexes), and various University of Michigan programs. These organizations pick up the CSA boxes from the farm and deliver them directly to their clients.

In addition to the CSA program, the farm also operates a food pantry, which is open to all and serves about 120 community members a week. They partner with Food Gatherers to provide the community with access to pantry staples in addition to fresh vegetables, eliminating the need for people to visit both the farm and separate food pantries. The farm uses their internal budget to purchase staples like eggs and milk (which, before federal cuts, they received for free from the USDA), receives rescued food like milk, eggs, bread, fruits, and vegetables from Food Gatherers, and orders non-perishables like dried or canned beans, cereals, rice, nut butters, and sometimes treats like Nutri-Grain Bars. In the hospital pantry, they focus on stocking easy-access things like pop-top soups, easy mac, and microwavable rice. Food Gatherers has had a 15% cut in federal funding, so the farm is currently waiting to see what the future will hold for their ability to continue to provide this level of food access.

The farm currently takes SNAP at the farm stand, and they offer SNAP boxes for $7.50 during Wednesday community distribution days. The Wednesday community distribution times are also times for community – Loren says that many people show up early with their coffees just to hang out, talk to each other, and enjoy the space. This is also when a representative from the SNAP-Ed program Healthy Habits Starts Now comes to the farm and provides recipes, samples, and tastings for community members. The Healthy Habits has been running for 8-12 weeks every summer, but unfortunately, the last day for the program is this August 13th; federal SNAP-Ed funding was eliminated by the recent “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The federal cuts to SNAP and SNAP-Ed funding will impact the operations of the farm (in ways yet to be determined). Still, beginning in January, the farm plans to start accepting “in lieu of services” (ILOS) reimbursements from Medicaid for qualified community members, which should hopefully offset some of the food costs for community members most in need of nutritious food. According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, ILOS are services the state deems to be medically appropriate and cost-effective when provided as substitutes for other Medicaid-covered services. The ILOS program is an example of preventative healthcare at work – the goal is to improve health and reduce the future need for medical services by reducing food insecurity and ensuring enrollees have access to nutritious foods.

Loren is hopeful that the ILOS program will open them up to different types of grants and relationships with integrated research with the hospital. There is the potential for doing medically tailored boxes for conditions like diabetes or boxes tailored for prenatal and postpartum nutrition, and conducting research on the efficacy of the boxes as a form of health intervention. She would also really love for the farm to be able to move towards providing pre-made meals, though this would require them to get additional food licensing.

For now, the farm remains an oasis in the middle of the city, with Trinity Health outpatients receiving physical therapy and tending the raised beds in the accessible hoophouse, CSA members enjoying the rain gardens and picking herbs from the beds near the food pantry, kids coming to the farm to learn about the importance of fruits and vegetables and enjoy the green spaces, and current and retired Trinity Health staff tending their designated community garden. The tightening of federal and state budgets will require innovation to continue providing these benefits to the community. Still, hopefully, The Farm at Trinity Health Ann Arbor will remain a magical place for many years to come.

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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By Julius Buzzard • July 1, 2026

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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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