BROWNWOOD—Good Samaritan Ministries is taking two things Brown County has in abundance and using one to bless the other.
Hunters know Brown County is an excellent place to find white-tailed deer. The county also has a child poverty rate of 29 percent.
Angelia Bostick, director of Good Samaritan Ministries in Brownwood, and Ernest Espinoza, food manager for Good Samaritan, sort and distribute donated venison to hungry Brown County residents. (PHOTO/George Henson)
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“Last year was a record year for the number of people coming to our pantry needing help, and this year will exceed last year,” said Angelia Bostick, director of the ministry, noting the pantry served 1,093 families in October.
The Deer Project, a program to use legally tagged and harvested deer to help feed the hungry, began in 2008.
The state already had a program called Hunters through the Hungry, and when Good Samaritan got involved, a local man who was not previously associated with the ministry read about it, he was curious.
“He asked me how we were doing with it, and I told him pretty good,” Bostick recalled. “He asked me how many deer had been donated, and I told him four.”
The man told her that he was sure that between him and his associates, they could bring in 100 deer.
Bostick said that would be nice, but Good Samaritan’s freezer space couldn’t accommodate that much meat.
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The hunter—together with a few other men in Brown County—designed, funded and built a walk-in freezer that became operational in two months.
Two years ago, donations began paying the processing fees, and the ministry really took off. Last year, a little more than 11,000 pounds of venison was donated to the Deer Project to feed the hungry of Brown County. This year, the goal is 15,000 pounds.
“It doesn’t cost the hunter anything. They just harvest the deer, field dress it, and take it to one of our participating processors in the area, and tell them they want to donate it to Good Samaritan,” Bostick said.
“Our processors are tremendous, because they charge us only $1 per pound, and we average about 30 pounds of ground venison a deer.”
Processing costs decreased this year after the processors approached the ministry.
“We paid $1.55 a pound last year, but they said theyad a proposal. They said: ‘We think you’re paying too much. We want to go back to $1 per pound.’ That doesn’t happen—in this economy, for a business to say, ‘You’re paying too much, we want to charge you less.’ That’s a lot less than what they would charge normally, so that’s really a blessing,” Bostick said.
Good Samaritan passes the blessing on to the needy of Brown County.
“We’re country. We’re a rural community. People are used to eating wild game, so they just love it. And it’s high in protein and low in fat, so it’s very healthy,” Bostick pointed out. “They look forward to this. They’re already asking, ‘Do you have they deer meat yet?’”
The generosity makes it even nicer for some, she said.
“They’re excited to have it and also to know that so many different groups come together to make that two-pound chub end up in their basket,” Bostick said.
“You’ve got the hunters who are paying for the hunting license and paying for their deer lease or their deer corn. Then you’ve got those people who maybe don’t hunt but believe in the project, so they’re giving money to pay for the processing. And you’ve got the processors who give us such a great deal.
“It’s just a diverse group coming together to make sure families here have protein on their plate, and the most expensive thing any pantry can provide is protein. It’s pretty amazing.”
Deer hunters are excited to use their interests to help others, Bostick added.
“They get five tags, and for most people, two deer are going to fill their freezer, “ she said. “Hunters like to hunt, and it helps. It helps our land; it helps hungry neighbors,” she explained.
“We can feed people, or we can feed buzzards and coyotes, because if there are too many deer, they’re going to starve and die off, or it’s going to bring more predation. I’d rather legally harvest that deer and get it to a hungry family.
“It’s a natural resource God has provided us.”
Bostick noted hunters come to Brown County from around the state, and the ministry would be glad to accept their donations. For more information, call (325) 643-2273.
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