No one can ever question whether Sam Cooke — the founder and CEO of CC Cattle Company, a navy veteran, and lieutenant for the Madison (Wis.) Fire Department — is driven to serve his community. His enthusiasm for helping those around him is clear, and in recent years, that drive has manifested itself through his nonprofit farming operation, which raises cattle on 13 acres, and donates the entirety of what is produced to local food banks.
“Service is important to me, giving back is important to me, having that kind of camaraderie and that bond to your community was important to me when I was young, and it still is,” Cooke said.
Cooke’s spirit of service was heavily influenced by watching his father work as a dairy farmer and volunteer for the local 4-H. Cooke’s father was known to encourage and build confidence among youth, both on and off the farm.
“Watching him interact with kids, to get them to come out of their shell, and kind of grow into their confidence was really amazing,” Cooke said.
After serving in the U.S. Navy for five years, Cooke returned home to help on the family dairy farm — yet the operation wasn’t turning a profit, so Cooke had to change career paths. He found a familiar atmosphere of family while working as a fireman, and he gained a new sense of service as a part of the charitable trust of Fire Fighters Local 311 Charities. Cooke was integral in helping to host and fundraise at events as a trustee.
When the pandemic hit, Fire Fighters Local 311 Charities stopped hosting events, but Cooke noticed that the need was greater than ever.
“So we were kind of trying to think outside the box of how we could still help in the community,” Cooke said. “I saw on the news that these lines at food banks and food pantries were going around the block, so we decided to start doing food drives in the fire station.”
Although the food drives were successful, Cooke noticed that the volunteers were looking for more meat amid the donations.
Equipped with his fundraising skills and a farming background, a lightbulb went off.
“I thought, I kind of missed being on the farm,” Cooke noted. “And I was like, ‘What if there was a farm that just had everything raised and donated to feed people?’”
This idea came with a seemingly endless to-do list, and many around him said it was outlandish.
“Even talking to my dad trying to figure it out,” Cooke said, “I pitched the idea to him, and he told me I was nuts. Which is fine, you gotta be a little crazy to do something different right?”
Despite this, Cooke was determined.
“You know the skepticism kept me grounded. It made me take things a little bit slower and do a little more due diligence,” he explained.
While developing his plan Cooke got in touch with a former coworker who was working on finishing their qualifications as an equine therapist. He saw the potential benefits of equine therapy and added it to the vision.
The next step was to find the funds and equipment to support a cattle farm that could also accommodate equine.
“It took a while to find this place, and in the midst of trying to find it was the meeting with an attorney, the meeting with nonprofit accountant, filing our 501(c)3 paperwork with the IRS, getting a charter, written constitution, bylaws, finding and convincing three of my friends to let me submit their names to the IRS for the paperwork,” he said.
But with the support of those three friends — and, over time, many others — he was able to establish CC Cattle Company.
After everything fell into place, Cooke was able to purchase a farm in October 2021, located 30 minutes north of Madison. Officially, he rents the property to CC Cattle Company. By summer 2022, Cooke received his first animal donations from his father, and the following year, he hosted his first equine therapy session.
With financial support coming from donations, fundraising events, and grants, he was able to start working.
Madison has more than 275,000 residents and a poverty rate of 16.2 percent, according to U.S. Census data. Because of the high need for aid, it was easy for Cooke to find a donation center at Second Harvest food bank that took everything the farm processed.
Cooke described that it felt like it finally came full circle when he made his first donation.
“It was like this justification moment. I’d heard enough people tell me that I was nuts, and now here we were, doing what we said we were going to do,” he said.
In the first year, CC Cattle Company donated 2,000 meals, and in the subsequent year, the nonprofit donated 8,000.
Cooke hopes to eventually acquire more land to multiply his donations.
As for the equine therapy, initially Cooke thought to provide it only for animals from veterans and first responders, but he later decided to offer it to everyone because of how wide the need was. He hopes to connect it to the cattle operation in the long term, to give purpose to the participants and slowly integrate them into the cattle operation by allowing them to serve as voluntary stewards.
“I think it’s important for people, because now, not only are you going out there for your own mental health, you’re helping feed your community,” Cooke said. “That gives people that purpose and that sense of community that they might have lost at some point in the time through anxiety, depression, PTSD, whatever it is.”
Tahja Sims serves as the 2025 American Farmland Trust Agriculture Communications Intern at AGDAILY, with a focus on helping to amplify diversity and minority voices in agriculture. Tahja is currently an agricultural economics major and senior at Texas A&M University. She has served as an intern with the U.S. House of Representatives and is a member of Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) organization.
