South Fayette venue hosts Hunters Sharing the Harvest’s 25-year celebration
John Plowman, Hunters Sharing the Harvest founder and executive director, speaks at the 25th-anniversary luncheon.
Among those attending the luncheon were Kip Padgelek, left, a Hunters Sharing the Harvest board member and participant in the program since its inception, and Matt Hough, Pennsylvania Game Commission executive director.
Hunters Sharing the Harvest executive director John Plowman, right, greets board members who attended the luncheon: from left, Tom Rossman, Daria Fish, Kip Padgelek and Alyson Joyce.
Sheila Christopher, executive director of Peters Township-based Hunger-Free Pennsylvania, speaks about the contributions of Hunters Sharing the Harvest as John Plowman listens.
The anniversary cake lists the amount of venison donated to food banks in Hunters Sharing the Harvest’s first 25 years.
Archery season for deer is in progress throughout Pennsylvania, and places like Kip’s Deer Processing in Collier Township are ready for business.
For owner Kip Padgelek, that also means participating in the statewide Hunters Sharing the Harvest program.
“Out of our shop alone last year, we sent the food banks – I’m very proud to say – almost 20,000 pounds of venison,” he said. “That feeds a lot of families.”
Padgelek was a primary organizer of Hunters Sharing the Harvest’s 25th-anniversary luncheon Sept. 29 at the Alpine Hunting and Fishing Club in South Fayette Township.
Among the accomplishments celebrated by the nonprofit organization is the cumulative donation of more than 1 million pounds of venison to food banks since 1991. That includes 109,000 pounds last year through about 100 participating processors.
“The hunter takes the deer to any of our approved butchers,” executive director John Plowman explained, “does not have to pay anything for the processing, just fills out a donor’s slip, and the butcher takes it from there.”
The resident of Harrisburg suburb Lower Paxton Township devoted much of the anniversary luncheon acknowledging Hunters Sharing the Harvest’s many partners, sponsors, board of directors – including Padgelek, who has served for seven years – and others throughout the state who have helped the organization grow exponentially since Plowman founded it in 1991.
An advisory council member, Sheila Christopher, is executive director of Peters Township-based Hunger-Free Pennsylvania, the state’s largest nonprofit provider of food resources for hungry. She has worked with Hunters Sharing the Harvest for most of its existence.
“We are very grateful for this program,” she said. “It’s a highly nutritious food. Over the years, the food banks have tried to evolve, that we provide more nutritious food, and we’re proud to be a partner of Hunters Sharing the Harvest, actually our first partner in such an attempt.”
Along with Plowman and his executive assistant, Deb Milliron, others who traveled from the Harrisburg area to attend the luncheon included Matt Hough, Pennsylvania Game Commission executive director, and Joseph Quattrocchi, director of the state Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Food Distribution.
“Hunters Sharing the Harvest has a unique partnership with the agriculture department, not only through the sanitation and quality control of the deer meat process, but also the administration and financial support to make sure that we keep the whole program viable well into the future,” Plowman said. “We’re already working on the 2018 season, getting for that, and we’ve just barely started the 2016.”
As for Hough, the Trinity High School graduate was a wildlife conservation officer in Washington County when Hunters Sharing the Harvest started.
“I remember how small it was back then and what it’s expanded to now,” he said. “It’s a phenomenal project.”
Providing substantial resources financially for the program is an industry that is especially prevalent in Washington County.
“Back at the dawn of time, it looked to me like we’re missing the boat on not at least talking about the energy companies,” Plowman said. “They had a committee about land resources.”
He recalled attending a gathering of the committee in Washington.
“We came out of that meeting with some new connections and new possibilities, and that has led to a major upbeat in our program because of the support that those companies have provided us,” he said. “They make the difference.”
For more information about Hunters Sharing the Harvest, visit www.sharedeer.org.