The New York Mets, in partnership with the Amazin’ Mets Foundation, hosted their annual food drive to benefit City Harvest as part of their “MetsGiving” initiative on Thursday, Nov. 13, at the Mets Team Store at Citi Field.
Community members donated a variety of goods for the cause, including canned fruit, canned vegetables, canned proteins, canned soups, peanut butter, packaged macaroni and cheese, packaged hot and cold cereal and juice packs.
Mr. and Mrs. Met made a special appearance during the food drive to greet fans.
Those who donated at least ten non-perishable items were awarded with a voucher redeemable for two tickets to a select Monday-Thursday Mets home game in the 2026 season.
Fans who dropped off their donations at the Mets Team Store also has the opportunity to shop for items there, many of which were 20% off for the generous donors.
“Things are harder than ever, I think, for people to get food,” City Harvest Associate Director of Donor Relations and Supply Chain Jenna Harris said. “People are experiencing a lot of food insecurity, and so being able to partner with the Mets on this initiative is wonderful, and we’ll be able to get a lot of great food out to the community. We so far have seen a huge turnout. We were expecting about 15 pallets of food. It seems like we may end up being even higher than that, which is amazing.”
City Harvest, the first and largest food rescue organization in New York City, is expected to close out 2025 having rescued more than 86 million pounds of nutritious, high-quality food that would otherwise have gone to waste. This food is delivered to hundreds of food pantries, soup kitchens and community partners across New York City for free.
“We’re so grateful that we can create this opportunity where the fans can join us to give back to the community and come back to Citi Field to do something fun that’s not just coming to watch a baseball game,” Amazin’ Mets Foundation Head of Foundation and Community Engagement Jane Son said. “Today, what’s actually quite special, for the first time, we’re actually partnering with our Mets Kids Club. They have a setup so that when kids are coming in with their parents to learn about philanthropy, giving back and donating. They have some places where [the kids] can do some coloring. We have Mr. and Mrs. Met with us here today, and so we wanted to create a special opportunity to kids to also feel what it’s like to give back to the community.”
Other planned events for the MetsGiving initiative include a distribution of more than 8,700 turkeys across all five boroughs on Friday, Nov. 21, as well as a coat drive in partnership with New York Cares at Citi Field on Wednesday, Dec. 10. Those who donate new or gently used winter coats during the coat drive will receive a voucher for two tickets to select Mets games in 2026.
