Across the country each fall, hunters head into the woods — hoping to connect with nature, decompress from the hustle and bustle, and of course, aiming to fill their freezers for the year ahead. Increasingly, they’re also going above and beyond, opting to fill local food pantries to help their communities as well.

Through venison donation programs — often called Hunters for the Hungry, Hunters Sharing the Harvest, Share the Harvest and similar names – whitetail deer are being turned into hundreds of thousands of pounds of lean, protein-rich meat for families in need. And the numbers are climbing.

There’s no national database that tracks every pound of donated venison, but a close look at the state programs that do report totals shows an emerging trend. Over the last few years, hunters have been donating well over a million pounds of venison per year nationwide, and 2025 is on pace to keep that number growing.

The Numbers Show

Starting with the states that regularly publish how many pounds of venison were donated each season, it’s clear that hunters across the country are committed to supporting their communities.

Pennsylvania has had four straight record seasons with their Hunters Sharing the Harvest (HSH) Program, one of the oldest and best-documented programs in the country, donating more than 3 million pounds of venison to food assistance agencies since 1991. Their statewide totals tell a simple story: generosity and steady growth.

2021-22: 187,426 lbs.
2022-23: 235,532 lbs.
2023-24: 261,672 lbs.
2024-25: 283,789 lbs.

That’s a 51 percent increase in just four hunting seasons. HSH estimates that last year’s total — from just 7,855 deer harvested statewide — translated into roughly 1.1 million servings of venison for families in need in Pennsylvania.

In Tennessee, Hunters for the Hungry, run by the Tennessee Wildlife Federation, shows the same up-and-to-the-right trend.

2020-21: 142,450 lbs.
2021-22: 148,011 lbs.
2022-23: 185,685 lbs.
2024-25: 163,287 lbs.

Even with some year-to-year bumps, Tennessee has grown donations by roughly 15-26 percent compared to the early 2020’s. The program has provided more than 10.5 million servings of venison to local food banks, soup kitchens and shelters since 1998.

Missouri’s Share the Harvest program has been a powerhouse for decades. Since 1992, the Show Me State has made it easy for hunters to donate venison to those in need.

2019-20: 348,535 lbs.
2020-21: 238,920 lbs.
2022-23: 235,169 lbs.
2023-24: 247,575 lbs.

While Missouri dipped slightly from a 2020 season peak, it has stabilized in the mid-200,000 range – an impressive average. The Missouri Department of Conservation and its partners recently announced the program has now passed 6 million pounds of venison donated since 1992.

Michigan’s Hunters Feeding Michigan program, coordinated through the DNR and food banks, reported a record 140,000 pounds of donated venison in the 2025 fiscal year which ended September 30. Using the standard conversion these programs rely on — about .25 pounds per serving — that’s roughly 560,000 servings of venison in the Great Lakes State in one year alone.

West Virginia’s Hunters Helping the Hungry program is a smaller, but consistent source of venison for those less fortunate. The 2023-24 hunting season saw more than 20,000 pounds of venison donated to those in need. With sponsorship from the Division of Natural Resources (DNR) and the assistance of two area food banks, more than 1 million pounds of highly nutritious meat has been provided to families and individuals throughout West Virginia over the program’s 34 years.

In the Old Dominion state, Virginia Hunters for the Hungry reported more than 222,000 pounds of venison was processed and donated to Virginians in need in the 2023-24 hunting season. Over the course of its 34-year history, the program has processed and distributed over 8.2 million pounds of venison, which has been used to provide more than 32.6 million meals to people.

Impressive Estimate

The United States does not have a central source of reporting venison donations nationwide, but it’s not hard to estimate the enormous impact hunters’ donations have in their communities. For food pantries and shelters nationwide, acquiring protein is a challenge due to the high cost of meat. Fortunately, hunters help make up the shortfall with generous donations of protein-rich, low-fat venison, providing millions of meals annually to those less fortunate.

Just taking into account those six major statewide efforts – Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Missouri, Michigan, West Virginia and Virginia – and adding up their total donations in the 2024-25 season, that’s roughly 1.06 million pounds of venison donated in a single year. And that’s just from six programs.

Looking at that in terms of a quarter pound per serving, that’s 4.3 million servings of donated venison from a small subset of programs nationwide. That doesn’t include Texas or Wisconsin: the two states where the most hunting licenses are sold; Texas with a 5-year average of 1.1 million tags sold and Wisconsin with a whopping average of 2.5 million tags sold over the same 5-year period.

However, a cautious but reasonable estimate based on scaling from the states that do report is that hunters across the United States are likely donating more than 2 million pounds of venison per year, totaling as many as 6-8 million servings of lean protein-rich meat annually.

Field to Food Bank: Hunters Make a Difference

Since deer seasons stretch across the calendar and official reporting lags, accurate number of donations for the 2025-26 hunting season aren’t available yet. But with the recent government shutdown limiting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits across the country, states and programs have been urging donations ahead of and well into the hunting season across all forms of media, even announcing new donation drives and refrigerated trailer events well into gun season.

While early signs indicate it will be a strong year, hunters know every deer donated makes a big difference — one deer can produce 150-200 servings of meat, depending on the program’s yield and packaging. Investing in these programs is one of the most efficient and effective ways to turn an existing harvest (and in many places, an over-abundant deer population) into millions of protein-rich meals.

Venison donations like these speak to the character of who hunters are. Hunters are not just conservationists but also contributors to the benefit and welfare of their communities. For those hunters who have wild game in their freezers and are still braving the cold temperatures to fill another tag, consider donating to a local food pantry. Share the harvest and be the reason hunting matters where you live.

– Joe Bartozzi, President and CEO, National Shooting Sports Foundation.