By Donna Lampkin Stephens
For many in the 501, fall means crisp mornings in the deep woods of Arkansas.
For many more, it means meat on the table.

By Donna Lampkin Stephens
For many in the 501, fall means crisp mornings in the deep woods of Arkansas.
For many more, it means meat on the table.
A group called Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry brings these two scenarios together. Since 2000, the organization has served more than a million meals to Arkansans who otherwise might have gone without.
“Our goal is a million a year, but we’ve got a little ways to go,” said Ronnie Ritter of the AHFTH. “We’ve got about 40 processors working with us. We’d like to have one in every county because with the high price of gas, people don’t need to have to drive to donate.”
AHFTH’s Web site – www.arkansashunters.org – features a quote by Sir William Churchill: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” That sums up the philosophy behind the program.
The all-volunteer organization relies on the generosity of hunters to donate wild game, those aforementioned meat processors, support from local food distribution organizations and financial contributions from individuals, businesses and churches.
“It’s a natural way for the hunters to go out and pursue their sport and then give back,” said Ritter, who succeeded Bob Barringer, the founder of the organization, which is managed and administered by the Arkansas Wildlife Federation. “There’s a lot of hunters out there who really like the sport of hunting but don’t really care for the meat.”
The program works like this: hunters field dress their kill and take it to a participating meat processor. They can pay the processor the fee, usually $45 to $60, as part of the donation, or they can simply donate the meat. The processing fee is tax deductible. The processor then works with local food distribution agencies to get the meat to those who need it most.
“We try to keep it within the county,” Ritter said. “Here in Hot Springs we give some to church food pantries, the Southwest Arkansas Food Bank. We work with a lot of the Methodist churches.
“These organizations can get canned goods, but they can’t usually get meat. Deer meat is very high in protein, low fat — an extremely healthy food. They only have it from October through December or January, but they always look forward to it. We get requests all the time to be put on a feeding agency’s list. Right now there’s not enough to go around.”
Hence the goal of increasing donations of all kinds.
Ritter said AHFTH considers a meal to be a quarter-pound of meat.
“A typical deer will dress out 50 pounds, conservatively, so you’re talking about 200 meals from one deer,” he said. “That’s only 5,000 deer out of about 100,000 in a typical yearly harvest. I think that’s doable.”
He said his group works closely with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission.
“They issue a lot of doe permits when there’s an excess number of deer, and we work with them on that, and then the hunting clubs can take those and donate,” he said. “We also work with a lot of urban bow hunts, like in Heber Springs, Cherokee Village, Hot Springs Village. Some of the cities have a lot of problems with too many deer, and we typically get most of those.”
Joe Mosby, long-time outdoor writer for several Arkansas newspapers and a former employee of the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, said most hunters continue to eat what they harvest.
“Maybe not quite as much as in the old days when a lot of people had to kill stuff to eat, but most hunters eat what they kill,” he said. “Not all of them, but a large percentage do. There’s more culinary attention to wild game now. People like to cook wild game on grills for party food, for instance. When I was coming up, they’d put food in a skillet and fry whatever; now there’s more of a variety to cooking wild game.”
AHFTH is a perfect option for hunters, he said.
“Many hunters will kill a deer for themselves, put it in the freezer, then kill another one, but they’ve already got all the meat in the freezer they can use,” Mosby said. “Then they’ll donate the second one.”
Ritter said that Arkansas’s abundant deer population means that most of the meat donated is venison, but AHFTH takes other forms of meat such as bear, elk and duck.
Mosby reiterated that while southern and eastern Arkansas is traditionally known as fertile hunting ground, there’s plenty of good hunting in the 501.
“There’s lots of good hunting around here and most kinds of game — deer, turkey, squirrel,” Mosby said. “There’s not a lot of public land open to hunting, but there is some. Otherwise, it’s wherever they can get permission to hunt.”
Ritter said AHFTH received a $100,000 grant two years ago from the Arkansas General Assembly with support from Sen. Ruth Whitaker of Cedarville, Rep. Mike Burris of Malvern and Sen. Terry Smith of Hot Springs.
“We’re going to go after that again,” he said. “It currently takes about $50,000 a year to fund the program, and if we increase the number of deer, we’re going to need more money. Sen. Whitaker is the chair of the sportmen’s caucus that most legislators are a part of, and they’ve helped us a lot. They really support us and believe in what we’re doing. It’s such a win-win for everybody involved. It’s one of those feel-good programs.”
For more information or to make a donation, contact Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry at P.O. Box 55303, Little Rock, 72215-5303 or call 501.282.0006, or go to www.arkansashunters.org.

 AHFTD Processors in the 501

Cleburne County
Lonnie’s Meat Market, 1141 Highway 25B N, Heber Springs, 362-6300
Faulkner County
Mayflower Taxidermy, 693 Highway 365, Mayflower, 470-3400
Lonnie’s Meat Market, 705 Club Lane, Suite 104, Conway, 450-7100
Garland County
Griffith Custom Butchering, 173 Keanard Lane, Hot Springs, 321-4228
Lonoke County
Cabot Meat Market, 119 N. Adams Street, Cabot, 843-5511
Lonnie’s Meat Market, 2790 South 2nd, Cabot, 843-7100
Pulaski County
Tommy’s Country Meats, 21419 Highway 365 North, Maumelle, 851-2400
Hoggs Meat Market and Catering, 4520 Camp Robinson Road, North Little
    Rock, 758-7700
Saline County
Kruse Meat Market, 2100 Kruse Loop, Alexander, 316-2110
Van Buren County
Clinton Meat Processor, 3288 Highway 65 North, Clinton, 745-4844
White County
Brogan Farms, 486 Romance Road, Romance, 556-5085