This equates to 94,000 servings a year for families in need.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s work was recognised at the recent Western Bay Community Awards, with Hunt for Good winning the Heart of the Community Award.<\/p>\n
A keen hunter, Osborne said Hunt for Good provided a win-win scenario for all concerned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps out farmers by culling a native bush and pasture pest [deer], which is returned to the urban community as meals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weekend hunting<\/p>\n
Monthly weekend hunting missions on farms each bring in about 150 deer.<\/p>\n
With divisions in the Bay of Plenty, Hawke\u2019s Bay, Manawat\u016b-Wanganui and South Waikato, Hunt for Good has 70 to 80 volunteers to call on.<\/p>\n
These include hunters, those who help break down carcasses on-farm and people who provide transport.<\/p>\n
In the Bay of Plenty, the meat is taken to Hunt for Good\u2019s Tauranga base, cut and minced by volunteer butchers, then packaged and sent to a blast chiller in Mount Maunganui to await collection and distribution.<\/p>\n
For Osbourne, the most rewarding part of Hunt for Good is sharing community feedback with his volunteer hunters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool being able to tell the guys the stories that come back from the groups we support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all love doing it. For a lot of the team, it\u2019s also about taking a break from busy, stressful lives. <\/p>\n
\u201cSpending time out in the bush together does wonders for our mental health and knowing it\u2019s helping people makes it even better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Key partner<\/p>\n
A key partner in Hunt for Good\u2019s Bay of Plenty programme is the Tauranga Community Foodbank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [Hunt for Good] are the saving grace for the community,\u201d foodbank general manager Nicki Goodwin said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a special place in our heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the foodbank was the biggest user of venison mince in the Bay of Plenty, contributing to more than 20,000 meals a month.<\/p>\n
The foodbank also organises distribution.<\/p>\n
Goodwin said the packaged product was picked up from the chilling facility at Mount Maunganui and \u201centrusted\u201d to the foodbank from there.<\/p>\n
Meals are sent out to community organisations, including Kura Kai supporting its Meals in Schools programme; Tauranga-based Good Neighbour, which offers various services to those in need; Under the Stars, which helps the homeless, and the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul.<\/p>\n
Tauranga Community Foodbank also distributes Hunt for Good meals to its counterparts in Katikati and Te Puke.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more venison that is provided, the further it can go in the community,\u201d Goodwin said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is good quality food, and we have a secure supply.\u201d<\/p>\n
For recipients at the foodbank, she said, there was a moment of disbelief.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a complete turnaround for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodwin said the foodbank would also love to receive donations of cattle from local farmers.<\/p>\n
Instead of sending stock off to a meat works, the farmer and the foodbank choose a home kill butcher, with the foodbank paying for the slaughtering and processing.<\/p>\n
Based in Brook St, Parkvale, the foodbank operates on a referral basis with a variety of community agencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This equates to 94,000 servings a year for families in need. The group\u2019s work was recognised at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[230531,1561,2668,39197,5988,564,2082,209,3499,29155,296,4515,230533,111,43,139,69,1118,19028,1562,230532,133688,666,664],"class_list":["post-453170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-230531","tag-bay","tag-deer","tag-extraordinary","tag-families","tag-food","tag-for","tag-group","tag-growth","tag-hunters","tag-into","tag-meals","tag-needy","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-pest","tag-plenty","tag-plentybased","tag-providing","tag-struggling","tag-turn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}