By Evan Semones and Carys Edwards
EFLAND, N.C. – “Don’t you leave now, I’ve got some meat for ya!” Donna Gray, director of Efland United Methodist Church’s food bank, exclaimed in her twangy Southern accent, wagging her finger in a motherly way at customer Alfredo Sanchez.
Sanchez smiled shyly and shuffled his feet, his eyes fixed on his battered boots as he waited patiently for his weekly supply of fresh meat. He lifted his head for the first time as Donna handed him a plethora of venison sausages in a white plastic bag labeled “not for sale.”
A wide grin spread across his face as he clutched the precious cargo close to his chest, expressed his gratitude with a solemn nod and made his way back home to his wife and three children.
Hearing the word “meat” uttered in a food bank anywhere in the United States is rare. Walk into most non-profit or church-sponsored food pantries and you’ll see shelves stocked high with overwhelming amounts of cheap canned, sugary, and fatty foods.
Foods high in protein — like fresh meat — are hard to come by for America’s neediest and hungriest residents.
Donna and her son, Rob, are helping to change this reality for the 70 or so people who come by each week looking for assistance in putting quality food on the table. And they’re looking specifically to venison, or deer meat, as the solution.
Rob’s passion for hunting deer came after the unexpected death of his father in April 2013. The emotional turmoil he experienced in the days soon thereafter caused him to rethink the direction he wanted his life to take.
“At this point in my life, I was not a religious person, and I was still trying to find my way and figure out what in the world my purpose in life was supposed to be,” Rob said.
At the time, he was a Research Triangle Park employee. He made the life-changing decision to trade his suit, tie and laptop for camouflage, a rifle and a Bible.
The self-professed firearms enthusiast stumbled upon a show about turkey hunting two months after his father died. “I was fascinated to learn about the challenge of hunting and I fell in love with the idea of trying to hunt. I logged so many hours in front of a computer every day, getting outdoors sounded like a dream come true,” he said.
He realized he has a talent for hunting deer, but after his family refused to eat the meat, Rob began to empty his venison-filled freezers and donate the bounty to those in need. The need for fresh meat was so great that Rob launched Orange County Outdoors Ministry in September 2015.
“The primary mission of the group is essentially addressing hunger needs,” Rob said. “What we can do is, from a hunting stand point, is harvest deer and have it processed at our cost through a state-inspected processor. It comes back packaged just like any other meat would. Then we go and find families that are in need.”
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Like many families, the Sanchezes would never have fresh meat sitting in the fridge without the ministry. When Alfredo Sanchez and his wife moved from Mexico to the U.S. in pursuit of a better life, they didn’t expect to be living in poverty and struggling day-to-day to put food on the table for their three children.
For Sanchez, who has to work two jobs because his wife recently lost hers, providing food for his family is one of the hardest things he’s had to face. The Sanchez family of five receives only $150 a month in food stamp assistance. With the price of ground beef and chicken hitting all-time highs — the average price has increased 81 percent since 2009, according to the FDA — at the grocery store, providing quality food rich in protein is difficult, if not impossible, for Sanchez.
Sanchez pulled his worn-out baseball hat over his eyes and tears rolled down his withered cheeks as he explained the little assistance they receive. “It’s breaking my heart,” he said.
The ministry has proved to be very popular with Rob’s church’s food bank recipients, including Sanchez. “It was eye opening for me when I went to these people’s homes to deliver food. I’d open up the freezer and there’s nothing in there. I know when you open up my freezer at home, things start to fall out,” Rob said.
Sanchez has been receiving the venison as his only meat source every week for almost three months since Donna walked across the road into the gas station he works at and said, “We have food for you.”
“Before, when we had more money, I would go to the store and buy meat like chicken but not now,” Sanchez said. “Everything is expensive and my jobs don’t pay too much so I cannot afford meat.”
Despite the frequent trips to the food bank, he insists that his life here is better than it was in Mexico. “Right now I’m happy here, we don’t have too much money but I’m happy, I’m safe and not scared so its good.”
Since starting the ministry, Rob has seen first hand the effects of a lack of good quality protein available in food banks. He blames it on storage issues and people sometimes donating their unwanted goods. “I even find myself doing it, I’ll go to a pantry and donate my canned goods, I won’t go into my freezer and donate my best steaks,” he said.
“The number one issue with any kind of a church feeding program or any kind of a food bank will tell you is that there is just no access to fresh meat; it’s very limited,” he said. “Fruits and vegetables, canned goods; they can get that. Fresh meat is a whole different story.”
The ministry “did” nine deer, a hunter’s term for killing, last year. This translates to over 1800 meals, three times more than his original goal, and a lot of hard-to-come-by high-quality meat, rich in protein, for the visitors of Efland UMC’s food bank.
And it’s helping a lot. As a component of every cell in the body, protein is an extremely vital part of a person’s diet.
“Muscle wasting, edema, an extremely emaciated appearance, swollen stomachs, anemia, lack of energy, lower immunity and a life-threatening and debilitating disease called kwashiorkor.”
Gene Erb, a registered dietician at Duke Medicine, listed the harrowing effects of a lack of protein in a person’s diet as if he were reading a horror story.
He recommended the average amount of protein a person needs to consume per day: “A rule of thumb of half a gram of protein per pound of body weight.”
According to Erb, there are some key nutrients found in protein, including B vitamins and iron. “If you’re even borderline on protein intake its very often you’ll be insufficient with those other nutrients,” he said.
The way Erb sees it; venison might be the solution to the vast number of people with iron deficiencies in the U.S. The natural meat is much lower in fat and saturated fat, contains more protein and also has higher iron content when compared to traditional meats such as chicken and beef.
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Kathleen Baird stands hunched over behind a food-filled table in the building the ministry calls “The Hut.” She smiles as she places pastries and bread into bags and offers the venison to visitors. She looks like a much-valued volunteer but when the visitors leave she steps back into the kitchen toward the fridge for buying generic sildenafil.
Raised by a family of hunters in Michigan, she is an avid fan of red meat and venison in particular. “If I could eat venison three times a day I would. I’d have it breakfast, lunch and supper and probably snacks; I’d have jerky in between.”
Baird, 64, who raised nine children and was a stay at home mom for 30 years, is now medically retired. As a result of her low income, she can’t afford good quality meat. “If I get meat at the store its whatever the cheapest is, so this has been great to be able to have this as its all natural.”
For Baird, the ministry is a great help and has kept her from applying for food stamps. “I prefer to live without government assistance,” she said, as she looked down at her swollen hands that were locked into crumpled fists because of psoriatic arthritis.
Fifty percent of her protein comes from the venison provided by the ministry. Without it, she would have to rely on poor-quality chicken or high fat content cheese and peanut butter. “For me to be able to have the venison, the red meat, which is so high in protein and so good for you, has really helped me a lot to be able to feed that to myself and my family.”
While some of his recipients have expressed hesitation about trying meat that you can’t usually buy in a grocery store, Rob said most of the people like it. “It’s an acquired taste, but it’s about as organic as you can get,” he said.
“They’re just happy to get whatever they can get.”
Donna headed to the kitchen and pulled a packet of Chili’s Applewood BBQ glaze & Pioneer gravy mix from the cupboard. She explained that she has to help teach recipients different ways they can cook and prepare the venison they receive, as many people are often confused and scared about cooking the game meat.
Baird laughed as she described the first time people in the food bank considered the venison idea. “When we had our first meeting about it they were like, uh, how do I cook it and I was like just like you would any other meat; it’s not alien food.”
“If you didn’t tell people it was venison, they probably wouldn’t know the difference,” Baird said. “Some people are like, ‘We’re not eating Bambi.’ But this meat has really helped me.”
