Marcus Rashford, a striker for Man United and England, has launched a book club for disadvantaged children.
In collaboration with Macmillan Children’s Publisher, 850 schools will share of 50,000 books. The schools, based in Scotland and England, will be receive the books from food charity Magic Breakfast. Marcus hopes that the book club will encourage young readers, even if they have no access to books at home.
A survey by the National Literacy Trust in 2019 found that over 383,000 children do not own a single book at home.
Rashford believes that the joy of reading should not be dependent on whether you have disposable income or not. “These children are those who often are on free school meals, or part of a breakfast club […] children who are more likely to need fiction and non fiction to escape from time to time”
Marcus Rashford tackles child hunger
In 2020, Marcus Rashford started a campaign to tackle child hunger in schools. He asked that every child receive free school meals in England during the school holidays. The campaign saw Rashford be awarded an MBE and prompted massive Government changes.
His mother Mel, a single mother of five, often went without food herself because there was not enough left after serving her children. Whilst his mum remembers the embarrassment of not being able to afford a loaf of bread, Marcus remembers the support of local businesses. “If they knew mum was at work” he recalls “they would let me have a portion of chips or something”.
Marcus started working with FareShare to raise money to give meals to vulnerable people when the schools closed. By June 2020 Marcus announced they had helped raise 20 million. When summer holidays were announced, the Government were not going to continue the free school scheme. Marcus wrote a letter urging them not to stop providing meals to the 1.3 million children reliant on it.
After huge mounting pressure, in part due to the social media campaign Rushford created, the Government started making major changes. Prime Minister Boris Johnson personally rung Marcus to tell them of the changes they have been making.
These include 170 million Covid Winter Grant Scheme to feed the vulnerable. 220 million for food and activities during holidays, increasing healthy start vouchers and giving food charities 16 million for food distribution.
Never one to stop, Rashford is taking his success in his stride. “I’m happy that we have got to this stage but I can’t stop thinking about what the bigger picture looks like”
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