We've never profiled a celebrity in this section before (the whole point is to introduce you to people that don't usually make it into the news). On the eve of the Euro2020 finals though, we're making an exception for Marcus Rashford.
The 23 year-old British footballer is famous as a forward for Manchester United and England, but last year he traded soccer goals for humanitarian ones. It all started with a tweet. On 19th March 2020, a day after the UK announced it would cancel meal vouchers over the summer holiday, Marcus jumped onto Twitter arguing that it was the government’s responsibility to support the children who relied on free school meals to eat. A groundswell of support followed and suddenly the footballer, who rarely expressed opinions, found himself front and centre of a furious public policy debate.
Marcus understood the value of a £15-a-week school meal voucher. He was raised by a single mum, who worked multiple jobs, and often scarified her own food to make sure Marcus and his 4 siblings were fed. Posting an open letter to his local MP, he urged his 4.4 million followers to do the same and explained “the system was not built for families like mine to succeed, regardless of how hard my mum worked. As a family, we relied on breakfast clubs, free school meals, and the kindness of neighbours and coaches.”
The next day the government announced a Covid summer food fund, giving 1.3 million kids meal vouchers over the holidays. Marcus joined forces with the charity FareShare to help fill the gap for the rest. By October, he was on a mission again, petitioning for an extension of out-of-term free school meals until Easter 2021. When the government refused to budge Marcus appealed to businesses to offer free meals and food to people in need. The response was astonishing, from small cafes to supermarket chains, Marcus retweeted pledge after pledge forcing the government into a second U-turn, extending the school food programme into the Easter, summer and Christmas breaks in 2021.
Through his work with FareShare, Marcus has helped raise enough money to distribute over 21 million meals to children and families who might not otherwise have eaten. In October 2020 he became the youngest person to top The Sunday Times Giving List and has vowed to "fight for the rest of my life" to end child hunger in the UK.
