By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER Ohio Correspondent HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH) enables hunters and farmers in states nationwide to provide nutritious meat to the food-insecure people of their communities. The Coshocton and other county fairs in Ohio sometimes donate auction animals. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife has been especially helpful to FHFH’s mission. “FHFH is an organization with a faith-based mission that recognizes that people across the country are struggling with food insecurity,” said Josh Wilson, its executive director. “We hear consistently from the food banks and feeding programs that one of the big things they need is meat and protein items. “We recognize that hunters and farmers are best suited to provide that item to those agencies that feed their communities.” FHFH started when Josh’s father, Rick Wilson, happened upon a woman on the side of the road trying to load a road-kill buck into the trunk of her car, said Dewey Thompson, FHFH coordinator for Coshocton and Tuscarawas counties in Ohio. He stopped to help and asked if she was aware that she needed a permit for that deer. “She told him her husband had left six months ago and she and her children had been eating this way ever since, and if he didn’t want to help, to get out of the way,” Thompson recounted. “Wilson helped her load the deer. “But as he drove away – something happened. He decided there had to be a better way. He quit his job and started the mission of FHFH.” Across the country, local volunteer coordinators like Thompson work with FHFH to raise financial support in their community, Josh said. They use those funds to pay local butcher shops to process deer and livestock donated by hunters and farmers. Food banks, local soup kitchens and local ministries pick up the meat to feed people in their communities. Thompson became involved in 2005 when he was coordinating an urban bow hunt for deer for the city of Coshocton. Afraid of a backlash from anti-hunting people, he searched the internet for deer meat missions and found FHFH. “I did it strictly as a ‘get out of jail’ card in case I needed it,” he explained. “I delivered the first 500 pounds of venison during Christmas week right as the Salvation Army ran out of meat. I could never have been smart enough to do this, and I thought, ‘I did something good here by accident.’” When the deer bag limits went down, Thompson, a farmer himself, came up short of meat for the mission. He told the junior fair board, “Anybody who wants to donate an animal to FHFH, we’ll pay the processing fees. “I’ve got 8.5-by-11-inch blaze-orange FHFH cards that go into the auction package. If someone wants to buy an animal and donate it, they just hold up that card.” This past year bidders at the fair donated 28 chickens, three goats, 13 turkeys, 135 rabbits, 22 ducks, 44 hogs and one steer to FHFH. Rick Wilson wanted farmers to be involved in the program because he understood that hunters took many of the donated deer on farmland. Also, farmers sometimes give deer taken with damage permits. “Over time we’ve seen an increase in donations in beef and pork, and even some poultry items raised as livestock,” Josh said. “It is not a huge percentage, but we do get a fair amount in Ohio and Indiana where farmers are contributing more.” Since 1997 the whole organization is closing in on 20 million servings, he said. It is significant that it usually provides between about a half-million to more than a million servings each year. That’s several hundred thousand pounds of meat annually coming from 3,000-5,000 deer and livestock donations. “It’s a great program,” said Mike Reynolds, Ohio Division of Wildlife executive administrator of Wildlife Management Research, which since 2008 has provided more than $700,000 in matching grants to FHFH. “We’re happy to be a part of it; we’re working on our annual agreement for this year. Hopefully, we’ll be providing them a matching grant for $50,000.” For information, visit www.FHFH.org or phone toll-free 866-438-3434. |
