Hunters feed the hungry

UTICA – It is a labor of love for Utica’s Linda Oiler, longtime owner of Oiler Meat Processing. She has stacks of boxes filled with deer meat in a walk-in freezer. All 1,500 pounds of it is slated to go to feed the hungry. 

Oiler, along with her late husband, Carmel, started contracting with Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH) approximately 13 years ago. Once a hunter brings a freshly killed deer into her shop, Oiler and her team receive it and go right to work on it.

“I give (FHFH) a big (price) cut on the work we do on those,” Oiler said. “We do (donated deer) for practically nothing. We just process them down to ground deer.”

Farmers and Hunters Feed the Hungry has been in Ohio for 17 years.

“Just bring the deer in here and just sign it over to Farmers and Hunters Feed the Hungry,” Oiler said. “I can't take any roadkills and I can't take anything that is skinned before it gets here. It has to come here with the hide on. When they donate the deer they have to donate the whole thing. Some people want to keep part of the deer and donate the rest, but that's not the way it works. When you donate it, you have to donate the whole deer.”

Justin Ross has been running a chapter of FHFH for the eastern part of Central Ohio since 2006 and has worked with Oiler for most of that time.

“We’re harvesting a renewable, natural resource,” Ross said. “It’s a win-win for everyone.”  

Economic troubles in recent years, along with a rise in livestock prices, have had an effect on the amount of deer donated per hunting season.

“It has dwindled a little bit because people are keeping their own animals in the last several years,” Ross said. “I would say that at the height I was doing 250 deer or about 10,000 pounds of meat (per year), so you could say that came to about 40,000 servings. More recently, I’ve been getting more like 50 to 75 deer, so it’s still about 7,500 to 10,000 meals a year. 

"There is definitely more of a need with the food banks. The downside is a lot of people are harvesting and keeping their deer, so there’s not as much supply.”

Ross expects this year’s harvest for bow season to be bigger when this week’s official numbers are posted by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“Now, they are keeping the deer they kill,” Ross said. “They are processing it themselves or taking it to a butcher. It’s getting used. It’s just not funneling through our program as much.”

For more information on Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry, go to www.fhfh.org.