ADRIAN — Fifteen years ago, Bob Vogel was part of the effort to start Hunters Helping Lenawee, a program of the Lenawee Community Foundation that fights hunger through donations of deer.

This past September, his grandson, Roman Vogel, shot and donated the program’s first deer of the season — a 9-point buck that he bagged during the youth hunt in September.

The Vogels are among the hundreds of local hunters who have helped provide more than 80,000 meals to people in need since the program’s inception. 

“We were just coming out of the recession, and as a foundation we had tried to, during that real hard recession, turn our attention to social programs,” said Bob Vogel, who is a Lenawee Community Foundation board member.

The biggest problems the foundation was trying to address included housing, employment, and meeting Lenawee County residents’ day-to-day food needs. Vogel and three other hunters — Scott Hill, Vern Fry, and Mike Houghton — realized that every deer they shot could make a big difference in the community.

“It seemed fairly obvious,” he said. “We had a deer problem and we had a hunger problem.”

And if they could get other hunters involved, then link up with USDA-certified deer processors and establish supply chains to local food pantries, the difference could be even greater.

The charter members started a fund to pay for processing, and the foundation itself matched what they donated and raised. That first year, about 1,200 pounds of venison was donated to people in need.

And the Vogel family’s tradition of hunting became a tradition of helping as well.

Roman, now 12 years old and a sixth-grader at Columbia Central, has been hunting since he was 6. “It’s always been like a family thing. My dad and grandpa have always taken me,” he said.

He enjoys being outside in nature, as well as the thrill when a successful hunt turns all of that anxious waiting into victory. And he also likes knowing that his efforts help put food on somebody’s table.

“It feels good to help people, because lots of people in Lenawee County are food dependent,” he said. “They may not be able to buy food with a lot of protein in it, and deer meat has a lot of protein.”

In fact, his grandfather said: “A quarter pound of beef would have something around 20 grams of protein, but it also has almost as many grams of fat. The same amount of venison would have more than 30 grams of protein and about half the amount of fat — maybe 8 grams of fat.”

Roman estimated that he’s shot about 14 deer in his life, and donated most of them.

In addition to celebrating its 15th anniversary, Hunters Helping Lenawee hit a milestone this year, with a record 5,185 pounds of venison donated to Lenawee County food pantries and community meal programs as of Jan. 31. That’s more than twice the previous season’s total, and it helped provide nearly 21,000 meals.

The foundation works mainly with Kasper’s Hickory House in Clinton and Exact Wildlife Creations in Tipton. Palmer’s Deer Processing in Britton also sometimes processes venison for the program.

The meat is ground and split into 1-pound packages for distribution. 

Once a donated deer has been processed and the meat is ready for pickup, the processor contacts the Lenawee Community Foundation, which begins calling a list of food pantries and community meal programs. 

This year, the meat was distributed through 27 different organizations: St. Mary on the Lake Catholic Church and New Life Baptist Church in Addison; the First Church of the Nazarene, CPC of Lenawee, the Catherine Cobb Domestic Violence Shelter, the Daily Bread, Housing Help of Lenawee, Lenawee County Recovery & Veterans Courts, Neighbors of Hope, St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry, the Salvation Army, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, and Share the Warmth in Adrian; Britton Emmanuel Church in Britton; Brooklyn Food Pantry in Brooklyn; the Clinton Community Food Bank at Clinton United Methodist Church; United Hudson Churches; the Morenci Food Pantry at Morenci Church of the Nazarene; Springville Methodist Church in Onsted; Community Learning Connections, Gloria Dei, God’s Breadbasket, New Song Community Church, Tecumseh United Methodist Church, the Tecumseh Service Club, and the City of Refuge Ministries Meal Assistance Program in Tecumseh; and Tipton Community Church in Tipton.

Bob Vogel noted that Mike Houghton, who chairs the Hunters Helping Lenawee Community, is instrumental in making the program happen, including putting together the annual golf outing that raises about $10,000 of the estimated $17,000 to $18,000 annual costs of processing the donations.

“Mike does an awful lot of work,” he said. “We all participate in it but Mike does an awful lot of footwork.”

With an estimated 16,000 Lenawee County residents — 9,000 of whom are children — needing food assistance, Vogel said the community foundation would like Hunters Helping Lenawee to get even bigger.

“We’d like to keep expanding the program, but we can only expand it as far as the money goes,” he said.

“Hunters Helping Lenawee is one of the ways the Lenawee Community Foundation connects people who care with causes that matter,” said Bronna Kahle, LCF president and CEO. “We’re grateful for the hunters who donate deer, and also for the local processors, food pantries, meal programs, volunteers, and donors who make this program possible — providing nutritious meals to local families, individuals, and seniors in need, helping to build a healthier, stronger Lenawee, now and forever.”