West Ham joint-chairman David Sullivan has donated £25,000 to FareShare UK, which will go towards free meals through the Child Food Poverty Taskforce, founded by Marcus Rashford.
Rashford has been urging the Government to continue its free school meals programme over the school holidays, having already successfully forced an extension of the scheme over the summer.
The 22-year-old’s campaign was rejected by Parliament after being put forward for a vote in Parliament by Labour, but an increasing number of councils and businesses are committing themselves to Rashford’s proposals.
FareShare is the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors, made up of 17 independent organisations, which take good quality surplus food from across the food industry and deliver it to almost 11,000 frontline charities and community groups.
Sullivan said: “Marcus Rashford has done such a fantastic job of raising awareness and leading the way in tackling this very important issue, which impacts so many youngsters in our local communities up and down the country. It is a privilege to be able to help.
“On a national level, the impact of the Child Food Poverty Taskforce will be huge. While closer to home, I’m really proud that the club has been supporting free school meals during school holidays for years now and we have seen what a continued difference it is making in our local community.”
The West Ham chairman’s donation is on top of the work the club has done in helping tackle the national issue of holiday hunger, inactivity and isolation in children and young people across east London and Essex, through their ‘Holiday Hunger’ programme.
The programme has been running for two years and seen over 3,000 meals delivered across more than 50 sessions in school holidays in east London and Essex.
