Grants help hunters feed the hungry

As deer season ends, participants report good year for donations

Friday, Jan. 29, 2010

Steven White is used to working on a budget.

As coordinator of the Southern Maryland Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH) program, he typically reimburses regional butchers for annually processing anywhere from 450 to 500 deer for local food pantries and soup kitchens.

White does so with the help of the Department of Natural Resources, which contributes $1 for every deer-hunting license sold to the program. But this hunting season, which ends tomorrow, the program has helped butcher more than 700 deer for hungry families, thanks to a string of grants from local organizations.

FHFH receives about $25,000 from DNR each year, which is usually enough to pay butchers from Sept. 15, when open hunting season begins, through the first week of December, White said. But donations from the Southern Maryland Resource Conservation and Development Board (RC&D), Maryland Farm Bureau and a locally-based hunting Web site have increased its budget substantially. Thanks to the grants, the first White has received in his four years as coordinator, FHFH was able to help butcher donated deer through the season's entirety.

"This year has just been a tremendous year," White said. "With the economic times that's really great because there's a lot more needy people out there."

Following the suggestion of board member Tommy Wright, RC&D submitted an application in November for and recently received a $5,000 grant from the National Association of RC&D Councils to help the local FHFH, Southern Maryland RC&D program officer Franklin Holley said. A small portion of the grant will go towards the administrative costs of producing informational flyers about RC&D and FHFH. The dual-sided flyers will feature information in both English and Spanish, a key aspect of the grant.

In addition, the regional RC&D board recently agreed to match the national association's grant, bringing the total donation via RC&D to $10,000, Holley said. Combined with the farm bureau's donation and $5,300 from huntonly.com, the local FHFH's budget has skyrocketed this hunting season and may even result in a surplus, allowing for donations to begin earlier next season, White said.

FHFH began in 1997 after Rick Wilson of Hagerstown helped a single mother along a Virginia highway load a deer carcass into her car so that her children could eat. Wilson, an avid hunter, saw an opportunity for hunters, particularly those who didn't want to waste the deer they killed, to help the needy.

The program quickly grew into a national campaign. During the 2008-2009 hunting season, the Maryland FHFH program helped process 2,489 deer and donate 497,000 meals — a total of 200 meals per deer, according to a report to DNR.

White has five butcheries in the Tri-County area that participate in the program, and two in Calvert County.

Rowell's Butcher Shop typically processes 1,200 to 1,300 deer annually and has donated some of them to local charities for more than 15 years, well before the national FHFH program began. Last year, the local FHFH paid Rowell to butcher 175 deer — this year, Rowell has already processed more than 200 deer for the program and has about 50 more to go, former owner Ernie Rowell said. Rowell sold the family business years ago to his son-in-law, Ron Weimert, but remains the daytime manager.

The cost to process deer varies between butcheries. It costs Rowell's about $70 to skin, process and package one deer, Rowell said. In 2008, Rowell's billed White a discounted $60 per deer and donated the remaining costs.

Rowell's combines with Baker's Meat House in St. Leonard to provide donated meat for various county organizations, including SMILE Ministries, Chesapeake Cares Food Pantry, Catholic Charities, St. Anthony's Church Ladies of Charity, the South County Assistance Network and Southern Maryland Food Bank, White said.

"Our clients give high, high compliments about the meat," said Cathy Ring, staff leader of the Chesapeake Cares Food Pantry in Huntingtown. "We are blessed by their business."

The pantry's relationship with Rowell goes back four or five years, and this season it began receiving venison from Baker as well, Ring said. At any given time, the pantry stocks five freezers full of packaged meat from the two butcheries. The venison comes wrapped like what a consumer might find at a supermarket and is the only consistent donation of fresh meat the pantry receives, Ring said.

"We've grown to accommodate the generosity of the program because we don't want it to go away," Ring said. "I'm just so thankful for what they do...We're privileged to be that conduit to just pass [the deer meat] right along."

Not all families receive the meat, though. Many have never tried venison before and are wary to do so for the first time. Others are simply turned off at the idea of eating Bambi. Regardless, all families must accept the meat upfront before it is handed out, Ring said, adding that about 85 percent of her clients do so. Over the years, it's become one of the pantry's more popular items. To help first-timers adapt, pantry staff have prepared stacks of venison recipes.

"Most of [the pantries] say how people have gotten used to eating the deer and they like it," Rowell said. "I think they come in and ask for it now."

The pantry served an average of 500 to 550 families per month prior to 2009, but a down economy has ratcheted up the number of those in need, Ring said. Clients typically total 600 to 700 a month now, and last November topped 800. The uptick will likely deplete the pantry's stock of venison by mid-February — last year's supply lasted until the beginning of March, Ring said.

jnewman@somdnews.com