Big Kahuna Wing Festival shares a love for wings and helping the community

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — The countdown to this year’s Big Kahuna Wing Festival is on. There are less than three weeks away before the annual event takes place in World’s Fair Park.

The 11th Big Kahuna Wing Festival is shaping up to be the biggest one yet, in turn helping charities and other organizations in the East Tennessee community.

“I started this event for my love of wings, which is obvious,” founder Matt Beeler said. “Growing up, my parents really instilled into me taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves. The entire Knoxville community has been awesome as far as sponsorships coming and supporting the event.”

The event not only showcases the best wings in town, it raises money for area non-profits like Food4Vols on the University of Tennessee’s campus. The group specializes in recovering unused and overproduced food from campus restaurants and dining halls and repurposes the meals for those in need.

“We are very grateful to be beneficiaries from BKW,” Tyler White said. “Without the donation from the festival, our program would not be able to run like it does. For every dollar we get, we can prepare at least three meals that we can donate to those who are food insecure on UTK’s campus. Food4Vols has grown tremendously. We are still a very young organization so the donations are helping us grow.”

Covenant Health is not only a sponsor of the event but another beneficiary from the money brought in. It all goes to the group’s non-profit Thompson Cancer Survival Center Foundation.

“It helps take care of our patients and their families. The heart of what we do is giving back to our patients and their loved ones,” Covenant R.N. Oncology nurse navigator Ashley Soto said. “We want to be able to help them physically, financially as well if they need financial assistance and emotionally. This gives us all of the abilities to do that.”

This year’s Big Kahuna Wing Festival will still be held at World’s Fair Park but will be taking over both the performance lawn and the festival lawn. This year’s festival is on September 1 from 3:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. We are told even if you are unable to attend, a donation can still be made through the festival’s website .

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