Every year I am issued 5 carcass tags by the New York State Department of Ecological Conservation (The NYSDEC), 2 of which are Doe tags, one a bow tag, one a gun tag, and a bear tag. I have often had dreams of filling the five, but the odds of that happening are really quite small. But if it were to happen, that's a lot of meat. The deer alone would probably come in around 200lbs of venison.

Not to mention, I don't ever carry the most amount of permits available to a individual. You can have a few doe tags signed over to you, if you have a land management permit, that will give you a few more. I grew up with a few people who ate mostly venison. Even then they had a hard time getting rid of it.

Then, about two years ago, I came across the venison donation program run by Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry. It's a great program. It's always sad to see a good portion of meat go to waist because somebody took to much, especially when there are those in the community who are going hungry.

That's where FHFH comes in. They take the venison you don't want, and donate it to local homeless shelters and food banks to help out the less fortunate in the area. You get to hunt, you get to manage your land, a deer is not wasted, and you get to help others out in the process. So next time you find yourself fortunate enough to have filled out your deer tags, think about donating a portion of it to FHFH.