Marcus Rashford is feeding Britain’s kids

On Friday, a jolly individual in a red suit will hopefully be arriving to bring joy and cheer to children around the world.

However, if you ask millions of families around Britain, they will tell you another (slightly younger) man, also in a red outfit, has already made their lives considerably better this year.

It is estimated that as a result of his crusading campaigns over the past year or so, Marcus Rashford has improved the lives of 1.7 million children across the country.

The Manchester United’s and England striker’s drive to bring about societal change began in October 2019, when he set up the In the Box campaign with Selfridges to give homeless people essential items over the Christmas period.

He and his mother Melanie visited shelters to personally hand the boxes out, while also sending some to a children’s home in his grandmother’s home country of St Kitts and Nevis.

Then, in March this year, during the first UK lockdown, Rashford teamed up with the poverty and food waste charity FareShare to deliver meals to those in the Greater Manchester area who were no longer receiving free school meals.

With an initial target of supporting 400,000 children in the region, the initiative quickly raised over £20million to provide food for children nationwide, and in the summer Rashford revealed that the charity had been able to reach over four million kids.

Also in June, Marcus wrote an open letter to the government calling on them to end UK child poverty and, a day later, they announced a change in policy regarding the extension of free school meals for children during the summer holidays.

Rashford wasn’t done there, and in September, he set up the Child Food Poverty Task Force in collaboration with several UK food shops, manufacturers, charities and delivery companies.

After he was awarded an MBE in October, Rashford vowed to continue his campaign, and a week later began a petition on the UK Parliament website to end child food poverty, with demands made for expansion of the free school meals programme, provision of meals and activities during school holidays, and an increase in value of Healthy Start vouchers.

He described himself as “blown away”by the nationwide support which followed, with over 100 businesses, charities, and local councils quickly pledging to the campaign.

In November, it was announced that, because of Marcus’s campaign, the government would be providing funding of almost £400m over the next 12 months to support the cost of food and household bills to poor families.

Former Red Devils manager Alex Ferguson and venture capitalist Michael Moritz pledged to double any donations through a Christmas fundraising appeal.

In this one-off documentary, cameras follow the footballer from Wythenshawe as he tries to better understand the effects of food poverty and how Covid-19 has contributed to the issue.

He speaks about his experiences of going without food as a child and the sacrifices his family had to make.

We hear from those closest to him, including his mum, his brothers Dwaine and Dane, and his close friends.

But Rashford, who was honoured with a special award at the Sports Personality of the Year ceremony last night, is typically modest about the film. he says: “This is not about me it’s about offering a platform for voices to be heard.

“We’ve been ignoring the issue for too long, now is the time for change.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper whenever you are able to do so.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper when you can safely.

You can also enjoy unlimited access to the best news from across Northern Ireland and the UK by subscribing to newsletter.co.uk

With a digital subscription, you can read more than five articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Thank you