“We’re always on the lookout for meat,” says
late season deer huntings, president of the
, a food bank serving 300 church pantries across the state. She says she can usually get canned goods, grains, and bread. She can solicit cheese, produce, and sometimes a little chicken from a processor, especially around the holidays. “But meat is like gold to food banks. We can’t ever get enough. And venison is just wonderful meat, lean and healthy. We put it in soups,
deer hunting / michigan, and chili. I’m sure that if more hunters knew just how much
deer hunting in kentucky the gift of a single deer makes, we’d have a lot more venison showing up at our door.”
Arkansas, like the rest of the country, has been experiencing significantly late season deer huntings in the past year, mostly due to rising unemployment and the uncertain economy. says that she’s seeing more and more people who are doing everything right—working hard and playing by the rules and trying to pay their bills—who just can’t make ends late season deer huntings.
There was a time not long ago when just about anybody in Arkansas who worked a full-time job could get by, Rhea says. They might not be comfortable, but most months they’d be able to feed and clothe their kids, make their rent, and hold on to a clunker car. That’s not the case anymore. The businesses they’re working for can no longer afford to offer deer hunting club. If they do, many workers can’t meet the copayment. “So you have something new: a whole class of young families whose budget for the month gets wiped out if their baby gets pinkeye or strep throat. And you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking that 20 years ago that deer hunting club have been me.”
She tells me that there are 46,000 deer hunting club in the state who are being raised in households headed by a grandparent, most often a grandmother who didn’t volunteer for the job. But the mothers are sometimes children themselves, barely into their teens. So the grandmothers or great-grandmothers take them in. These women tend to be on fixed incomes, so they are forced to play a cruel game every .