ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY — The Anne Arundel County Food Bank is busy like always during the holiday, but the food bank has not had to deal with COVID before during the holidays.
The pandemic hit and that affected the food bank operation tremendously.
"We lost 75% of our workforce overnight and had to find a way to replace and keep moving forward at increased capacity."
Most of the food bank workforce is seniors and they couldn't be exposed to the public. So with the workforce gone and the pandemic increasing their need by 300 percent, it made helping people even more difficult. This year the county came up with a program to increase donation interest.
"When you make the donation of the deer at the processing plant, you can either get a tax write off or you can actually receive $50 for your donation."
You get to help families and make money at the same time.
In the past, if you donated the deer meat, you would get a $50 tax write off, now you can have the choice of getting a $50 check for your venison. To take advantage of this program, you must use one of three butchers in the county: Harwood Butcher, Back 40 Deer Processor, both in Harwood, Anne Arundel County or Ray Hitchcock Taxidermy in Severn.
One dear equals 200 meals. The Anne Arundel County food bank feeds 65,000 house holds a year, so they need all the help they can get.
"There is actually a third win because the farmers in the area have actually been struggling with deer population eating the produce, so it's going to wean down the deer population so we will have more produce."
Hopefully an impact that will last through the holidays.
