The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is celebrating another successful year of the Hunters Feeding Michigan program after it collected a record amount of venison for food pantries in fiscal 2025.

Hunters Feeding Michigan specialist Joe Presgrove tells us the program started in 2005 and asks hunters to donate meat they harvest.

“Ever since then, it’s been growing,” Presgrove said. “In fiscal year 2025, we hit an all-time record at 140,000 pounds of ground venison, which was donated by hunters. And that’s equivalent to about 560,000 servings.”

Fiscal year 2025 ran from October of 2024 to September of this year. Presgrove says hunters give to the program for a variety of reasons.

“One, they might want to help out their neighbors in need. Some might be trying to do a little deer management on their own property where they already filled their own freezer, filled their neighbor’s freezer. Now they want to continue hunting to get more deer off their landscape. And then they give it to the Hunters Feeding Michigan program.”

Presgrove says the venison is either frozen by the food pantries and given to clients or it’s used in soup kitchens and served to those in need. The donations go to all 83 Michigan counties and since 2007 have resulted in more than three million protein-rich meals. The state works with processors to get the meat from the hunters to the food panties, free of charge to the hunters who make donations.

You can learn more about the Hunters Feeding Michigan program right here.