08/16/2026
The final whistle has blown—but the World Cup’s impact is still being felt around Kansas City dinner tables.
Throughout the World Cup, Pete’s Garden recovered an incredible 24,736 pounds of surplus food - enough to provide more than 20,000 take-home meals for Kansas City families.
This food came from venues across the region, including Kansas City Stadium (aka GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium) , FIFA Fan Festival, the Kansas City Regional Operations Center, the Argentina team hotel (aka Origin Hotel Kansas City), Chef Kansas City Catering, , and Sporting KC.
We are grateful to Kansas City World Cup 2026 for making food recovery an important part of World Cup operations.
Thank you to the KC community for generously donating to support the additional staffing, packaging, and logistics this effort required, including T-Mobile, Premium Waters, and the KC offices of Morgan Stanley and Protiviti.
And a huge thank-you to our hardworking volunteers, who contributed 300 hours portioning and packaging recovered food into wholesome family meals.
We are also grateful to Tiny Pantry Times, who recovered boxed lunches that did not need to come through our kitchen and delivered them directly to social service agencies. Their partnership helped ensure even more good food reached our neighbors quickly and efficiently.
The world came to Kansas City and Kansas City stepped up. Together, we turned an international celebration into thousands of family meals.
Less Food Waste. More Family Meals. 💚