It’s like Marcus has gathered the kids in his arms and said ...I’ve got you

Families praise star’s free meals drive

STRUGGLING families whose hungry kids are benefiting from Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign have thanked the England star.

Marcus, 23, has become the voice of hard-up households – yet insists: “It’s not about me.”

But parents have laid bare how his lobbying of ministers has transformed lives.

Mum Beth Smith, 25, said: “It’s like Marcus Rashford has gathered all the children in his arms and said, ‘I’ve got you’.”

Sophie Perkin said: “Thanks, Marcus. You are one of a kind!” The striker has revealed his family was once so poor his mum Melanie would skip meals so they could eat.

The Manchester United striker, inset, has twice persuaded Prime Minister Boris Johnson to let more than one million hungry pupils claim free meals in holidays.

Marcus and his mother helped at a FareShare foodbank and the group named a depot Melanie Maynard House after her. The mum of three said: “I had three jobs and if I didn’t do that we wouldn’t have been able to cook. Marcus is only telling the story from how he sees it and the words he has been saying come from the bottom of his heart.”

The player said: “When you come from a place of struggle and pain...it becomes your drive and motivation.” With several celebrity chefs he has called on Mr Johnson to overhaul the free meals policy.

The group, including Jamie Oliver, Tom Kerridge and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, urged the PM to fix the system for the long term and called for an end to child food poverty before the summer.

They praised the “swift response” to tales of families receiving inadequate food.

Anna Taylor, of the Food Foundation charity, said with a full review “problems are going to still keep appearing”.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The Prime Minister has been clear that no child will ever go hungry as a result of the pandemic.”