Senator Mark Norris (R-Collierville) is urging residents in West Tennessee to join him in supporting the Tennessee Wildlife Federation’s Hunters for the Hungry program. He understands the important role Hunters for the Hungry plays for the Mid-South Food Bank and hunger-relief organizations across the region. Now he has formally accepted TWF’s Legislative Challenge, held each year during the white-tailed deer season.
Norris, who serves as Tennessee’s Senate Majority Leader, helped launch the Tennessee Nutrition Caucus in 2014 with a bi-partisan team of legislators and organizations dedicated to fighting food insecurity and malnutrition. Hunters for the Hungry provides a dependable source of lean protein to hunger relief agencies, thanks to the generosity of hunters.
“Leaders like Sen. Norris help us ensure that hunters can donate deer at no cost, processors are able to prepare the meat and distribute it to soup kitchens and food banks in the area, and hungry Tennesseans are being fed,” said Hunters for the Hungry Program Manager Matt Simcox. “Each year, we challenge legislators to see who can deliver the biggest impact in their districts, and tens of thousands of meals have been provided as a result.”
Hunters for the Hungry provides funding to more than 80 wild game processors across 67 Tennessee counties who receive donated venison from hunters during white-tailed deer season, package the lean, organic meat for free or at a reduced rate, and make it available to local food banks and hunger-relief agencies.
Norris is asking those in his district to consider making a generous donation of their own so more families and children can receive this much-needed relief. He cited statistics showing that more than 25 percent of Tennessee’s children don’t know where their next meal will come from.
“This program has had a major impact on Memphis and West Tennessee, utilizing a renewable natural resource to provide thousands and thousands of meals to people who desperately needed help,” Norris said. “I hope folks in my district will join me in supporting the Tennessee Wildlife Federation’s Hunters for the Hungry program, and help make someone’s holiday season a little brighter.”
He is calling on neighbors in Dyer, Lauderdale, Shelby and Tipton counties to join him in supporting Hunters for the Hungry by contacting his office at (615)-741-1967 to make a donation.
Hunters for the Hungry has collected more than one million pounds of venison since its inception in 1998, yielding over four million meals to food-insecure families and individuals across Tennessee.
To learn more about the Tennessee Wildlife Federation or Hunters for the Hungry, visit tnwf.org.
