Hunters have unique opportunity to help

Neighbors helping neighbors. It’s pretty standard in Northwest Montana. Hunters have a unique opportunity to help those in need by donating their animals to the local food bank. Community Harvest Food Bank is again participating in a program to match those in need in Sanders County with meat donated by hunters.

As rifle season continues through the week of Thanksgiving, many Sanders County residents will be out hunting elk and deer to fill their freezers for the year. If you have plenty of meat and can afford to donate any animals, the Montana Food Bank Network will pay for the processing. Two local processors, Pat’s Wild Game Processing in Trout Creek and Clark Fork Custom Meats in Plains, are participating in the program, and have for several years.

Last year, it was reported that a program in Whitefish was able to salvage enough roadkill for 1,500 meals. While that is a way to eliminate waste, there are plenty of sportsmen and women who hunt purely for sport or trophy and the harvested meat would just collect freezer burn over time. The program provides a way for the sport to translate into charity. Since the inception of the program more than 110,000 pounds of donated game has been distributed throughout Montana.

Denny Pargeter with Community Harvest Food Bank spends his days trying to find the best deal on food to stock the shelves for the Thompson Falls food bank, scanning advertisements and working out agreements with grocers, as well as driving, loading and delivering the finds back to home base. Sometimes, even his best efforts are not enough to accommodate the requests for assistance that rise in frequency during the winter months.

This program with the Montana Food Bank Network is a great way to help your neighbors while still getting out to enjoy hunting season. It doesn’t cost much, and the food bank will help deliver the animals to processors.