Photo courtesy of Hunters Sharing the Harvest Here’s one hunter who helped meet the nutritional needs of many people by donating this mature doe.

When I was a kid cutting my predatory teeth on venison chops, doe tags were less liberal than they are now, but we did get a deer or two each year and had no trouble eating them. Our butchery was a family assembly line, from skinning to cutting to grinding to packaging. Mom canned some of the venison, aging it for a period of months in broth-filled glass jars.

People lived closer to the land in those days than most people do today. They depended on the meat they harvested, as well as fresh garden produce. My older brother Dan and I tilled, planted and weeded our family’s large garden. Mom operated the pressure cooker so we could have home grown vegetables throughout the winter. Our meat and potatoes meals consisted of venison and what Dad called “spuds,” along with beans, peas or carrots from Mom’s cannery.

With plentiful antlerless deer tags today, many hunters now get two, three, or even four deer per year — more than enough for today’s smaller families. Deer still need to be killed or they will overwhelm their habitat and harm the species that share it, but who’s going to eat all that meat?

Fortunately, no venison needs to go to waste. Organizations in both New York and Pennsylvania are geared up to distribute healthy, low fat, high protein, hormone-free venison to people who need it, people who might not otherwise get much protein in their diets.

In Pennsylvania, it’s Hunters Sharing the Harvest. Randy Ferguson, executive director of HSH, reports, “An average deer yields 35 to 40 pounds of meat. We had 261,672 pounds of meat donated from 6,905 deer and six elk last year. That’s about 1.3 million three-ounce servings.” All that meat nourishes countless people through thousands of local charities that include food pantries, missions, homeless shelters, churches and individual families. The HSH website, www.sharedeer.org, explains how the program works and how anyone can participate.

In New York, the Western & Central New York Pantry Project (part of the Venison Donation Coalition) gets meat to people who can use it. Its mission is to transform “a renewable natural resource into nutritious food for those less fortunate and in need.”

The organization’s website, www.venisondonation.com, gives a complete history and background on how the New York program works and where the approved commercial venison processors are who will receive the hunter’s legally harvested deer.

In either state, deer can be donated without cost to the hunters, but dollars are still needed and can be donated by anyone who cares about feeding people. Both organizations were started in the 1990s, so both have plenty of history and experience which makes venison donation easy. The meals provided through these programs number in the many millions.

The venison is ground and packaged, making it easy to use in a variety of dishes without special recipes. Grinding the meat also enables butchers to economize their time, and no one gets a better cut than another person gets.

Non-hunters — you can help as much as hunters can. Non-hunters can help alleviate hunger for needy families and children by going to www.sharedeer.org or www.venisondonation.com and making a monetary donation to cover the cost of processing. Both are 501(c)(3) programs with very low overhead, so your money will go far thanks to lots of committed volunteers.

Hunters — before the season begins, plan to donate one of the deer you harvest. Advance planning lets you avoid the last-minute questions “Who do I call?” and “Where do I take my deer?” You’ll find information on how to donate a deer on both organizations’ websites.

Hunters gain a sense of satisfaction by making venison an important food source for families. It’s really not much different from giving your extra tomatoes away. Plus, a benevolent purpose and helping someone else to eat local and to live closer to the land will add an extra incentive to your hunting, and it will surely add extra value to your annual hunt.

***

When “The Everyday Hunter” isn’t hunting, he’s thinking about hunting, talking about hunting, dreaming about hunting, writing about hunting, or wishing he were hunting. If you want to tell Steve exactly where your favorite hunting spot is, contact him through his website, www.EverydayHunter.com. He writes for top outdoor magazines, and won the 2015, 2018 and 2023 national “Pinnacle Award” for outdoor writing.