Hunters Sharing the Harvest working with local food banks to feed families in need

The Spark

Hunters Sharing the Harvest is Pennsylvania’s venison donation program for hunters who share their extra venison via statewide network of participating butchers to food pantries and community assistance centers across Pennsylvania. Meadow Thompson, Produce and Agricultural Coordinator for Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwestern Pa says the foodbank has a partnership with Hunters Sharing the Harvest.

“We are very blessed to be able to receive, to have the capacity to receive large amounts of meat donations for us to equitably share with our food pantries and our neighbors in the 11 counties that we work in. And working with them has been very easy and has proven very fruitful.”

Hunters sharing the harvest originated in 1991. Since then, it has made a huge impact on communities across the state.

“So last year in 2023, we received about 4,500 pounds of venison from hunters sharing the harvest. And that is such a significant amount of food to be given to our neighbors in need and being able to work with hunters. Sharing the harvest has allowed us to access food that we would not have had otherwise.”

For those looking to participate, Thompson says its a very simple process.

"So the very first step of hunters sharing the harvest is enjoying a safe hunt. So as long as everyone is safe and and following all of the rules that they need to be following for hunting and enjoying themselves, that's fantastic. And the next thing that they would do is carefully field dress their deer. They would legally tag it and report their harvest of the deer. So those are all things that you would normally do when hunting, but that is required when donating deer through hunters share the harvest. The next thing that they would do is on the website which is shared deer.org. I'll mention that again later. You can find which processor closest to you would be able to take the deer. Because we work with certain processors. So you would take your whole deer that you had field dressed and legally tagged and reported to this processor near where you live. And when you arrive, you complete a deer donor form. And that is truly it is as easy as that. So it is completely free. You do not need to pay the processor completing the donor. The deer donor form helps us because they actually at that point later will receive a letter of thanks and that letter of thanks qualifies them for for tax purposes, which is fabulous. So the entire process is very easily easy. It goes from hunting to donating at the at the processor.?

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