Surplus World Cup food is feeding families in the Philly region

The big picture: World Cup host cities across the U.S. are finding ways to redirect surplus food from matches and events to food banks and nonprofits.

Driving the news: The final shipment of unused food from Philadelphia Stadium arrived at the North Wales food bank Garden of Health on Monday.

• The Montgomery County organization stored and redistributed most of the recovered food to other groups across the region.

By the numbers: About 20,000 pounds of food were recovered in total.

• The food was delivered in shipments two days after each of Philly's six matches.
• Nearly 14,000 pre-made meals were donated from the stadium, which included salads, wraps, cookies, chips and gluten-free options.

Those meals had been made for players and staff from teams including France, Brazil, Croatia and Haiti.

• Other donated foods include soft pretzels, fruits and vegetables.

Zoom in: FIFA and Aramark partnered with Arizona-based Musically Fed and FoodRecovery.org to coordinate the distribution of the unused World Cup food in the Philly region.

• The Veterans Multi-Service Center and Everywhere Project, both located in Philly, also received food donations.

What they're saying: It was an unexpected boost at a time when food insecurity is rising and donations are declining, Carol Bauer, COO and founder of Garden of Health, told Axios.

• "The fact that it didn't go into a dumpster or get composted and it's going to actually feed people who are food insecure is huge," Bauer said.

What's next: The roughly 900 donated lunchboxes received by Everywhere Project will likely be distributed at Love Park Wednesday night, the nonprofit's director of operations Tom Frey told Axios.

• Frey said the donations were welcome but nowhere near enough to meet the growing demand.
• "We can use every bit of it," he said. "But it's really just keeping us online, you know? Where we're not slipping behind — we just cannot keep up with the outpouring of need in the past few months."