This is what compassion looks like
Football hero Marcus Rashford & his mum help out at food charity
MARCUS Rashford and his mum helped at a foodbank after Tories snubbed his plea to feed hungry kids in the holidays.
The Man Utd striker, 22, has told how Melanie relied on free meals and did 14-hour shifts to feed him and his four siblings. Rashford said: “When we stumble, there will always be a community to pick us up. For many that’s a foodbank.”
CARING Marcus Rashford helped foodbank volunteers shift boxes of supplies yesterday – after Tory MPs snubbed his plea to feed 1.4 million hungry children during the holidays.
Accompanied by his mum Melanie, the footballer visited a new FareShare warehouse named in her honour, which will allow the charity to treble the quantities of food it gives out.
Rashford, 22, said: “The real superstars in this country can be found in the heart of most cities, towns and villages, working tirelessly to support our most vulnerable across the UK.
“As FareShare and other food-related charities approach one of the toughest winters on record, with demand higher than ever before, it is important that I lend my support wherever it is needed.
“When we stumble, there will always be a community to pick us back up. For many of us, that is the local foodbank.
“Foodbanks are staffed with selfless volunteers protecting those most vulnerable – those who, in many cases, have fallen into circumstances due to illness, personal loss and unemployment.
“A lot of these volunteers have themselves suffered unemployment as s a result of the pandemic, yet they still strive to help p others less fortunate.
“That to me is the greatest example e of what we can do, and the difference we can make, when we just work together.”
The Manchester ster United and England land striker’s family relied elied on free school meals when he was growing wing up in Wythenshawe. we.
He has described ribed being haunted by hearing his mum crying after doing 14-hour shifts to feed eed him and his four siblings.
Rashford successfully ccessfully campaigned for free ree school meal meals in summer but his effor efforts to force Boris John Johnson to extend the scheme schem till Easter were torpedoed torpedo by Tory MPs. A Labour La motion was defea def e ted 322- 261, prompting prom an outpouring of anger an against more than 300 Tories who voted vote it down. The Daily Mirror Mir printed the names nam of all MPs who refused refu to back it. Rashford R said after the vote that children would go to bed hungry and “feel like they do not matter”.
But he vowed to continue fighting, saying: “For as long as they don’t have a voice, they will have mine.”
FareShare volunteer Karina Tiplady said the star was “so humble” when she met him yesterday at the charity’s warehouse in Greater Manchester.
She said: “It’s good that he is doing his best to stop other children from feeling how he felt and going through what him and his family went through.”
Karina, 34, started volunteering in July after being horrified by large numbers of families and disabled people queuing for a foodbank near her home in Manchester.
She appealed to the Prime Minister to change his mind, adding: “Sit back and imagine one of the children, a loved one in your family or friends, going hungry.
“Imagine how it feels as a child, not only in the pandemic with schools closing but also going hungry. There’s so much a child is going through.
“Imagine yourself as a parent and it’s no fault of your own, or a situation you are in that you have no control over – how inadequate you feel, when in the House of Commons it’s as simple as,
The UK’s real superstars are working to support the vulnerable at foodbanks
MARCUS RASHFORD HELPING OUT AT FARESHARE’S DEPOT
‘Parents should be feeding their own children – end of ’.”
FareShare UK chief executive Lindsay Boswell praised the footballer’s campaigning for shining a spotlight on child hunger.
She said: “The naming of this warehouse is in recognition of Melanie Maynard and in fact, of all mums in the UK, supporting their children.”
Ms Boswell added: “We are disappointed with the outcome of the vote, which would have been the first step on the road to providing some peace of mind to struggling families. Fare
Share continues to provide two million meals each week to vulnerable communities across the UK and we stand ready to provide all the food we can obtain.”
Meanwhile, Liverpool FC vowed to help local children by delivering 1,000 free meals to families around Anfield.
The club is also sending half-term breakfast club packs to all 25 schools in Anfield and Kirkby.
The Liverpool Echo reported that Liverpool FC’s Foundation would also make a donation of more than £200,000 to the Nor th Liverpool Foodbank before what is expected to be an extremely difficult winter for people in the city.
A primary school will offer £15 each to the families of pupils who receive free meals over half-term.
Marianne Allan, head of Cambois Primary School in Northumberland, said “It is morally correct and it is the responsible thing to do.”
Organisations were forced to step up as the Government stood firm on its opposition to extending the free school meals scheme.
The motion would have extended meals to some 1.4 million of the poorest youngsters during the holidays until Easter 2021.
Tory Caroline Ansell, Eastbourne and Willingdon MP, resigned as a parliamentary aide for the Department of Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs after rebelling.
She was among five Conservatives who supported the Labour motion.
Ms Ansell said her “conscience” would not allow her to vote with the Government on the issue.
Tory minister Kit Malthouse moaned Rashford’s criticism of the free school meals defeat was “unfair”.
“While I understand Rashford is coming from a strong sense of duty towards society and has good motives, so are we,” he told the BBC.
He did not deny Tory whips briefed MPs on attack lines against Rashford, saying it was “standard practice”.