The Roadside Deer Behind 24 Million Servings of Meat

One Saturday morning in late September, a Maryland teacher driving down a Virginia highway to meet some friends spotted a woman standing beside her car with the trunk open. In the grass next to her lay a slightly battered six-point buck. She was taking it home because her kids were hungry.

"My Kids Are Hungry"

The teacher was Rick Wilson of Hagerstown, Maryland, a hunter nearing the end of a 30-year teaching career. He pulled over to see if she needed help.

She did. She wanted the buck in her trunk.

"My kids are hungry," she told him.

Wilson offered to field dress the deer for her, but she said no thanks. Her family had gotten pretty good at cleaning deer themselves, she told him. The buck was still warm.

He helped her load the buck into her trunk and stood there as she drove away.

Wilson's family dates that morning to 1997, the year he started his program. A 1998 newspaper report, written a year after the launch, placed the roadside meeting a few years earlier. Either way, it stayed with him.

Two Butchers

Back home, Wilson met with two butchers in Washington County, Maryland, and both agreed to process deer that hunters donated, so the meat could go to food banks and shelters. The program launched there in the fall of 1997.

He did not invent the idea from scratch. He modeled it on Virginia's Hunters for the Hungry, a venison donation program that had been running since 1991, and took advice from its director.

The setup was simple. A hunter drops off a field-dressed, legally tagged deer at a partner butcher shop. The program pays the processing bill, and the meat goes free to food banks, pantries and shelters.

That first season, donated deer in Wilson's own county added up to 3,800 pounds of venison, enough for more than 15,000 meals.

From One County to 24 Million Servings

The program grew from one Maryland county into a national organization, Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry, still based in Hagerstown. Farmers joined the hunters, donating livestock as well as game.

By 2017 it was working in 29 states plus Washington, D.C.

Its running total now stands at more than 24 million servings of meat donated, processed and handed out since 1997, counting deer, elk and livestock.

An average deer provides about 40 pounds of lean meat, enough for 160 meal servings of chili, tacos or spaghetti sauce.

Every Season, Another Deer

The deer still come in every fall. In Ohio, hunters can donate through the program at no cost beyond their licenses and permits, at any time during the season.

Ohio's wildlife agency said in June 2026 that it planned to coordinate its own deer donation effort with Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry for the coming season.

It all traces back to one buck on a Virginia roadside, and a mother who needed help getting it home.

Top photo: donated ground venison (illustrative). DC Central Kitchen / Flickr, CC BY 2.0.