November is National Wild Game Meat Donation Month. All across the country, hunters are out in the fields and blinds on a quest to fill their own freezers. And for those hunters who also donate part of their harvest, they’re taking aim at food insecurity.
Right now, food insecurity is an immediate and growing problem, thanks to politics.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides food benefits—commonly referred to as food stamps—to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget.
However, due to the shutdown of the federal government, as of this past Saturday, November 1, no benefits are being issued because of a lack of funding—again, thanks to politics.
The overall downturn in the economy, in the wake of record inflation during the previous administration, has already put a strain on American families. A stoppage in SNAP funding only further exacerbates the pain being felt by communities.
And it has put a significant strain on food banks and charities working to support their struggling communities.
Now in its third year, National Wild Game Meat Donation Month (NWGMDM) is designed to rally the millions of hunters to donate wild game meat through a network of food processors, state programs, food banks, churches, and charities.
If you are a hunter, now is the time to step up and help those in need by donating a portion of your harvest. NWGMDM is calling on America’s sportsmen and women to not only be hunters, but to become heroes with a much-needed donation of game meat.
Hunters supporting those in need is not at all a new concept. As Karen Mehall Phillips of American Hunter and NRA Hunters’ Leadership Forum writes, “Since the early 1990s, American hunters have done this through the NRA-backed national Hunters for the Hungry (HFH) movement, donating millions of pounds of nutritious surplus wild game meat to help those less fortunate each year.”
But it wasn’t until 2023 when the message about donating went national with the creation of the Wild Game Meat Donation Month—a concept that originated back in 2014 in the research office at the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).
Jim Curcuruto, who was then the head of research at NSSF, and now leads the Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundations (OSCF), found that public opinion of hunters and hunting improved among non-hunters once they learned that hunters actually eat—and often share—the game they harvest.
Curcuruto reached out the other organizations—such as Hunters for the Hungry, the National Deer Association (then known as the Quality Deer Management Association), and various meat processors—to estimate the amount of game meat donated annually, its dollar value compared to store-bought meat, and the number of meals that game meat provided.
Further research showed that more hunters would donate if they knew there was a need—and if they knew how and where to donate.
It wasn’t until 2022 that Curcuruto, now at OSCF, sat down with Peter Churchbourne of the NRA’s Hunters’ Leadership Forum to brainstorm a broad communications strategy encouraging more hunters to participate—while also highlighting those efforts to non-hunters.
With the NRA’s support, and its much larger megaphone for getting the word out, plans were put in motion to launch National Wild Game Meat Donation Month in 2023.
Along with promotional elements for social media and PSA-style banners—like the one in today’s editions of The Outdoor Wire and The Hunting Wire—the NRA helped expand the network of meat processors. Through the NRA Foundation, grants were made available to help fund the processing of donated game meat.
This past Thursday, Peter Churchbourne was on hand to dedicate a new refrigerated wild game meat donation trailer, made possible by the NRA Foundation and the Hunters’ Leadership Forum, for the East Texas Food Bank. Photo courtesy of Peter Churchbourne
Through this initiative, a variety of organizations, charities, and state programs have come together not only to answer the call for those in need but to mobilize millions of hunters to do so—and its momentum continues.
Last year, just a handful of governors supported the effort. This year, according to Phillips, that number has increased to 15, each signing official proclamations declaring November 2025 Wild Game Meat Donation Month in their states.
National Wild Game Meat Donation Month is an under-heralded initiative having an outsized impact on the hunting community and those benefiting from hunters’ generosity.
But there is more that can be done—and more hunters are needed to help fill the nation’s food banks with organic, grass-fed, free-range, non-GMO protein that money, for the most part, cannot buy.
If you would like to be a champion in the fight against food insecurity—and help fill more than just your own freezer—you can donate a deer, contact your state’s Hunters for the Hungry program, or locate a participating deer processor near you. Other organizations tackling this issue include Farmers & Hunters Feeding the Hungry and Hunters Helping the Hungry.
NRA Hunting’s research found that 98% of the non-hunting public has a favorable opinion of hunting when they learn that hunters eat the wild game they harvest. Let’s give them some more to chew on.
— Paul Erhardt, Managing Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network
