Elk County’s new HSH program Coordinator Dan Surra was recently appointed to represent the Hunters Sharing the Harvest (HSH) program, and has announced the addition of Elk County to the growing list of counties that provide venison to needy families in Pennsylvania. HSH is Pennsylvania’s charitable venison donation program and the conduit for hunters who share their extra venison via a statewide network of participating butchers to Food Banks across Pennsylvania. HSH participating butchers, who are paid for their services through monetary donations, coordinate the meat deliveries and work with local food banks. The food banks redistribute the venison to more than 4,000 local food assistance provider organizations such as food pantries, missions, homeless shelters, Salvation Army facilities and churches, as well as needy families.
Local food banks expected to participate are the Christian Food bank, St Marys; Good Samaritan Food Bank, Ridgway; and the Northern Elk Food Pantry in Johnsonburg. Local butcher’s Palumbo Family Meats located in Ridgway and The Smoke House owned and operated by Joe Sarnoski in St Marys will be the official HSH participating deer processors in Elk County.
The PA Hunters Sharing the Harvest Program has been successfully feeding the hungry for 20 years, and is the largest and successful charitable program of its kind in the country. Since 1991 Hunter’s Sharing the Harvest has solicited and coordinated the processing and distribution of donated wild game from hunters to hungry people throughout Pennsylvania. An average-sized deer will provide enough highly-nutritious, low-cholesterol meat for 200 meals. There are over 1.4 million families in the State of Pennsylvania in need of food assistance. HSH provides an excess of 750,000 meals annually to help feed the hungry. HSH is a registered IRS and PA non-profit charitable organization, and monetary contributions are tax-deductible.
For more information, go to www.sharedeer.org.
