KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Temperatures hit 94 degrees as fans poured into the FIFA World Cup fan fest near the southside of downtown Kansas City. While spectators and volunteers enjoyed events on one side of town, a separate group was collecting unused meals on the other side with the goal of feeding families and cutting fresh-food waste.
Pete’s Garden, a Kansas City nonprofit, collects unserved food from FIFA Fan Fest, Kansas City Stadium, and team hotels to reduce food waste and address food insecurity. The organization recently picked up meals from Lionel Messi and Argentina’s team hotel, which stayed at the Origin Hotel along the riverfront. According to Tamara Weber, founder and executive director of Pete’s Garden, records show the group collected donated food from Argentina’s hotel on five days in June, beginning June 3 and most recently on June 24.
Volunteers packed dozens of containers inside the kitchen area of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral Memorial Garden. Weber said about 13 volunteers worked on the day the story described, preparing items such as shrimp scampi, spaghetti and other pasta dishes. She described one donation from the Argentina hotel as an Argentinian chicken dish and said the group takes food not served at the stadium, watch parties and team hotels, allowing the public to see what teams had for dinner the night before, according to ESPN.
Weber traces the mission to her upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where her father, Pete Sluk, maintained a backyard garden and shared excess produce with neighbors to avoid waste. She moved to Kansas City in 1998 and later became motivated to act after her daughter Grace’s participation in a school social justice club, where attendees watched Anthony Bourdain’s 2017 documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste.
When Kansas City was announced as a World Cup host in 2022, Weber used the 2024 NFL draft as a rehearsal and decided to triple the operation’s capacity for the tournament. In doing so, she built a system that serves and saves thousands of families in the Kansas City area.
