Pike County food pantries provide deer meat to community
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By DAVID CAMPHOUSE
David Camphouse/Pike Press
Two Rivers Reachout Center food pantry employee Cera Forshey shelves two pound packages of frozen deer meat, which will be distributed to Pike County residents. The meat is provided by the Access Food program, a program of Access Illinois Outdoors. All meat is donated by area hunters and processed by Hilltop Custom Meat/Smith Taxidermy. The program is funded by grants and donations.
With the start of the bow hunting season in Illinois, Pike County food pantries have begun distributing locally harvested deer meat to residents. Pantries received their first batches of meat last Friday
The meat is provided by Access Food, a program of Access Illinois Outdoors. The Access Food program accepts deer donations from hunters, processes the meat, and distributes the meat to area food pantries.
“We’ve sent out our first deliveries,” Access Illinois Outdoors Executive Director Brenda Middendorf said.
Now in its eighteenth year, Middendorf said Access Food is seeing all-time highs in the number of deer donations being received by the program, and this year is getting off to a fast start.
“We had a record breaking year last year,” Access Illinois Outdoors Executive Director Brenda Middendorf said. “We had 355 deer donated to the program that were harvested in Pike County. That’s eight tons of meat.”
“We’ve had over 50 deer donated so far. Our goal is to meet or exceed the 355 deer we had last year.”
All of the deer donated to the Access Food program are processed into ground meat by Pittsfield’s Hilltop Custom Meat/Smith Taxidermy.
“Hilltop has done an outstanding job,” Middendorf said.
In fact, Middendorf believes much of the growth in donations of deer to the program is due to Hilltop’s involvement with the hunting community.
“We attribute the increases in the number of deer donated to Hilltop’s many connections with hunters,” Middendorf said.
Hilltop Custom Meat/Smith Taxidermy owner Todd Smith stated that his business is steadily churning out ground meat for the Access Food program and that the output would only increase as the hunting season progressed.
“We processed close to 60 already,” Smith said. “At this point in the season, we are usually doing two or three a day. Closer to gun season we may be taking in 10 to 20 deer per day.”
Access Food is made possible by deer donated by hunters, as well as monetary donations and grants to account for the meat processing costs.
Hunters who wish to donate a freshly harvested deer should contact Hilltop Custom Meat/Smith Taxidermy.
“We accept donations when we are open,” Smith said. “We are usually here by eight in the morning and nine on the weekend.”
“Preferably the deer is gutted, but, other than that, they should bring it in whole as soon as possible.”
Hunters should call ahead to make sure staff members are available to receive deer donations. The phone number is 217-285-4720.
To donate monetarily, individuals should visit www.accessil.org/donations/ or call (217)285-2464. Donations are tax deductible.
