Hundreds of thousands of people in Kansas City for FIFA World Cup matches, watch parties, and more means a lot of fun but also the potential for a lot of waste.

With pre-prepared meals in Arrowhead Stadium suites, FIFA Fan Fest parties, and even player meals at team hotels, leftover food can lead to filled dumpsters.

"A third of all food that's produced in the U.S. gets wasted," said Tamara Weber.

That's part of the reason she created Pete's Garden, a food-recovery nonprofit.

"We work with the food service sector, so that means restaurants, caterers, food service operations, anyone that's preparing food in bulk, and a lot of times there's surplus food that is perfectly good to eat, but it was just more than what was needed for the number of people that attended the event," Weber said. "We're able to bring that food back to our kitchen here, where our volunteers are portioning and packaging it into take-home family dinners."

Pete's Garden works with more than 20 partners year-round, including restaurants, convention centers and sports teams like the Chiefs, Sporting KC and the KC Current.

Volunteers with Pete's Garden pick up the food and bring it back to Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral in downtown Kansas City.

In the church's basement, a team of volunteers places the food in a walk-in freezer until it's ready to be repackaged.

"When food comes in, it gets weighed and labeled, so we know what all these items are," Weber said. "This is all food that is stored in our walk-in cooler waiting for volunteers to pack. So, on Monday mornings especially, this walk-in is completely full with food from weekend events."

From the freezer, more volunteers repackage the food into meal containers for local families.

"It's whole food," Weber said. "It is real food, made from scratch. So then we have volunteers who will take the food that comes in and portion and package it into these take-home family dinners."

Weber said Pete's Garden then works with other organizations that distribute the food to families in need.

"We work with organizations like Operation Breakthrough Boys and Girls Club," she said. "These are organizations that are already providing a host of services to families. Our meal is one additional benefit."

Since starting in 2020, Pete's Garden has helped thousands of families across the metro.

"This year we will recover about 260,000 pounds of food, which doesn't really mean anything until I put it in terms of a thousand families a week take home a complete family dinner at least once a week," Weber said.

Their operations grew even larger in June and July due to the World Cup. Pete's Garden is working with KC2026 to pick up food from Arrowhead Stadium, FIFA Fan Fest and even team hotels.

"We are expecting to distribute about 10,000 additional meals over the course of June and July during the FIFA period, and at this point, we're on pace to hit that," Weber said.

It's created some funny situations for the Pete's Garden team, like when untouched food from KC's base camp teams shows up at their doors.

"We've been picking up food from the Argentina hotel," Weber said. "That's been fun. Although we did not get any birthday cake from Lionel Messi's birthday. We were looking for it. But, you know, that's been fun because our volunteers get to see, 'Oh, this is what the Argentinian team ate last night for dinner.'"

Ultimately, it's feeding families in need in Kansas City, but it's also giving families the extra time to sit down and have a nice family meal.

"Our free take-home dinners allow the family extra time to connect over a nice meal," Weber said.

Pete's Garden is always looking for more restaurants to work with across Kansas City; you can find out more information on their website.