DES MOINES – The Iowa DNR says that thousands of needy Iowans have have benefited from a program where hunters can donate extra deer meat.
Hunters in Iowa use the popular HUSH (Help Us Stop Hunger) program to donate deer meat to food banks. The programs works with 81 participating lockers to provide high quality meat to needy Iowans, through the Food Bank of Iowa.
Field dressed deer are skinned, de-boned and ground into two-pound packages and then distributed to local needy families. The program is funded by hunters, who pay a dollar surcharge with each deer tag purchase.
HUSH has provided meat from 66,300 deer to those who need it—nearly 3,400 last year. Processors receive $75 for their end of the work. The Food Bank of Iowa picks up $5, as it oversees distribution.
Each locker will accept whole deer, asking the hunter to fill out a Hunter HUSH card. There is no fee paid at the locker. A list of participating lockers is available in the Iowa Hunting Regulations and online at www.iowahush.com.
great idea? wrong ——you are taking a wild animal killed in uncertain conditions and then thrown into a pile of other deer where all is ground to be served to humans. Think about that. HOW in the world can that be considered safe to consume>when domestics (pigs, beef,chicken) have to be processed under FDA/USDA guidelines. I FFA kid carefully raises a farm animal and cares for it even to maybe show. Come time to slaughter, it is taken to a locker that has to follow rules of sanitation and process it maybe even under inspection from sate or federal rules. MEANWHILE a hunter gut shoots a deer he has chased though the woods – throws in truck driving on grave roads -stops to BS with friends, leaves in truck over night (maybe) then takes to a locker to process when ever the locker can get to it. Then it is mixed with other deer as they get ground for feeding the hungry. (I think the hungry have a better chance of eating healthy from dumpsters behind McDonald’s)
great idea, do it Mason City