Kansas chapter leaving group

By James Carlson

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

The Kansas chapter of a popular nonprofit that helps feed the homeless with hunted deer has broken from its parent group over small complaints about finances.

The state's division of Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry now will be just Hunters Feeding the Hungry Inc. after Tony Derossett, the state chairman since its inception, pulled out of the national group.

He said in an interview that financial dealings at the top and some choices to utilize mass mailings led to his decision.

Rick Wilson, FHFH executive director, said Derossett has objected to national policies for years.

"If you're upset with a group, you grasp at straws," Wilson said.

The nonprofit FHFH was conceived nearly 10 years ago as a Christian ministry to feed the poor. The group receives excess venison or other big game and pays for the butchering and freezing of the meat for local kitchens to use.

Since the Kansas chapter opened in 2001, Derossett said it has grown exponentially. They started in 10 counties and are now in 70. Last year, the chapter raised more than $60,000, he said, processing 798 deer that fed 160,000.

But Derossett said he isn't a fan of Rick and Josh Wilson - father and son - running the national FHFH.

"We're just contributing to the financial well-being of the Wilson family," Derossett said.

He said 15 percent of the money Kansas raised last year went to the pair's salaries. According to 990 forms from the Internal Revenue Service, Rick Wilson pulled in $47,700 last year, up from $39,900 in 2005. Josh Wilson made $49,800 in 2007, up from $43,400 in 2005.

Rick Wilson said he now makes $36,000 a year and that the organization has always been family-run. He said Derossett complained about everything in the group, from the ban on serving alcohol at their fundraisers to FHFH being a Christian organization.

"The things he was raising was not reasonable," Wilson said.

Tom Charlton, the former director of the Muscatine County chapter in Iowa, said he can understand Derossett.

"When you have local recognition, it's tough when you raise money and see some of it go away," Charlton said. "The question is then could you do it yourself. Kansas apparently thinks it can."

Derossett even went through the trouble this year of getting lawmakers to change the group's moniker in all references within the Kansas statutes. There are partnerships between the Kansas group and the state's Department of Natural Resources laid out in the law, which needed changing to reflect the new name.

David McMullen, who directs a chapter in Maryland, where the group is headquartered, said he has worked side-by-side with the Wilson family, and everything is aboveboard. He said it is unusual for a nonprofit group to use only 15 percent for salaries, and he pointed out that FHFH has won the Independent Charities of America's Seal of Excellence for public accountability and program efficiency.

"How could anyone complain about that?" McMullen asked.

Charlton said he had talked before with his Iowa group about pulling out of the national organization, plans that never moved beyond the idea stage.

"There's brand recognition with (FHFH)," Charlton said. "We get perks for being with them."

Derossett, for his part, says Kansas will operate well on its own.

"We were doing fine before, and we'll do fine now," he said.

James Carlson can be reached

at (785) 233-7470

or james.carlson@cjonline.com.

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