Jeff Olson loves to eat the deer and antelope he shoots.

But even more, he loves to share them with people who really need meat for the table, especially this time of year.

That's why the Rapid City dentist, who also serves on the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Commission, donates about half the deer and antelope he bags each year to the needy, through the state's Sportsmen Against Hunger program.

Olson was the main man in founding the program through the Black Hills Sportsmen conservation club 19 years ago. And he remains active both in its management and promotion and in making donations himself. This year, he expects to donate half of the dozen deer and antelope he and his children are likely to take by the time the state hunting seasons are finished.

"This year, the needs are greater than ever, what with the economy and everything," Olson said. "The program has been around long enough that some people really rely on this meat. It's what they need to help get them through the winter."

From a few hunters and a few donated deer almost two decades ago, the South Dakota Sportsmen Against Hunger program has grown to the point where last year 75,000 pounds of meat were donated. This year, Olson hopes for 100,000 pounds.

And he believes that the potential, like the need, is much greater.

"We've been told that the food bank just here in Rapid City could distribute 4,000 pounds a day if they had it," Olson said. "There's still a lot we can do."

Rapid City Community Food Bank Director Monica Leitheiser said the donated venison is a welcome addition to the flow of food going to the needy each year.

"We give that out in at the Food Pantry to individuals and in the Food Bank, to the agencies," she said. "It goes really, really quickly."

To keep that supply of wild meat coming, the Sportsmen Against Hunger now covers all or most of the cost of processing the game. The program, which runs on private donations and state Game, Fish & Parks Department funds, will provides to game processors certificates worth $50 for an antlerless deer or $40 for an antelope doe or fawn.

Some processors agree to reduce their processing rate for donated animals so that the hunter doesn't have to pay any difference. J&K Meat Processing in Piedmont is among those.

"I think it's a good deal," J&L owner John Schleusner said. "We love the program."

Schleusner was donating meat even before the SAH became prominent.

"Ever once in a while you'd get hunters who would leave their meat, kind of abandon it,"

he said.

Schleusner donated much of that food on his own. The more organized, increasingly well-funded program is a good thing for hunting and for the needy, he said.

The program struggled with some bad publicity following a 2007 study in North Dakota that showed lead fragments in about half the ground venison samples that were tested. A follow up study this year showed that blood samples from people who ate large amounts of venison shot with lead bullets generally had higher levels of lead in their blood than those in the study who ate little or no venison.

Even the venison eaters, lead levels were below levels that are considered to be elevated.

"Actually, the blood levels of those tested who ate game was less than the national average," Olson said.

But because of the lead, Sportsmen Against Hunger officials in North Dakota decided to take only venison killed by archery hunters. The publicity had little impact on the South Dakota SAH program, however.

Olson said South Dakota processors were encouraged to "aggressive in removing tissue around the wound" of animals to be donated. And he said it's especially important that pregnant women and children 6 years old and younger not be exposed to lead.

But he thinks North Dakota officials overreacted to the issue.

"I feel it is safe," Olson said.

Donated venison is good food that is becoming an increasingly important source of protein for the economically depressed, he said. And he will continue to promote the donation process, both through his work as a leader in the Sportsmen Against Hunger program and in a more direct way: with his trigger finger.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com

Meat donated

Pounds of game meat donated through South Dakota Sportsmen Against Hunger:

1998: 3,299

1999: 4,764

2000: 11,561

2001: 10,368

2002: 12,323

2003: 9,185

2004: 27,447

2005: 38,847

2006: 45,198

2007: 75,957

For more information on the Sportsmen Against Hunger go to www.feedtheneedsd.com