STANLEY HEATON

Stanley, eight, lives in Droylsden, Greater Manchester, with his mother. In October 2020, he organised a food-bank donation drive. Stanley found himself interviewed on television and tweeted about by Marcus Rashford.

‘It just seemed so unfair that some kids didn’t have enough money for food’

BEFORE LOCKDOWN my favourite thing to do was play football. I played four or five times a week with Fletcher Moss Rangers, where Marcus Rashford started playing. I never imagined he’d call me his hero!

Last October, my mum was watching the news before work, as usual, and I saw that Marcus Rashford was trying to get free school dinners to hungry children. It just seemed so unfair that some kids didn’t have enough money for food. I turned to my mum and said, ‘How about we write to the neighbourhood, asking for donations for those people?’

I just wrote a letter and put it through my neighbours’ letter boxes. Within minutes, we got our first can donated. Then the word spread. They told their friends, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger. In a few days, our whole living-room floor was covered in tins of beans and tuna, and packets of cereal and rice! There was hardly any space left to walk!

Someone put the letter on Facebook and when it went viral, it was just insane. I was on TV a few times – Channel 5, Good Morning Britain, This Morning… One day, Marcus Rashford tweeted about it. He just wrote, ‘Stanley, you are my hero,’ and I was insanely excited, especially because I’m a United fan.

It was quite fun to be famous for a bit. At football and at school, everyone was talking about it loads. But really, it just felt really nice to do something good. Some people from The Trussell Trust came in their cars and loaded all the donations up. I never got to meet the families it helped, but it changed the way I feel about things a bit. Just thinking about the idea of going to a food bank every day… It’s not nice.

It made me really appreciate all the things I’ve got in my life so much more.

Lockdown was really annoying for me. I couldn’t see friends, play football or go out. But I always had food. I was disappointed when Boris Johnson didn’t help those kids. But ordinary people think they can’t do anything to change things. I think that’s wrong. If you do have food, you’ve got to feel grateful, and to do something for people that don’t.

Me and my mum are now thinking we’ll do something again at Christmas, getting people to donate toys. Then next year, maybe around February, just after my mum’s birthday, we might do something for animals too.

The whole thing has inspired me to be more like Rashford. I want to be a footballer. But I also want to be a really good man.

Inspired by Marcus Rashford, Stanley called on neighbours to donate to food banks