Marcus Rashford has given an interview with Gary Neville on The Overlap and has reflected on all the work he did during the pandemic to ensure that hungry children were fed, after the government announced they would not continue to provide free school meals for young people in need.
Rashford has reflected on the reasons behind his work and talked about his upbringing, showing that even when they were struggling they wanted to help others as a family, and now he’s in a position to do even more.
Even though we were struggling ourselves we’ve always given back. I remember a couple of times, when we were at The Cliff, we used to get the bus in to town. We used to pass loads of homeless people and my mum would give me the last couple of quid in her purse to give to a homeless person, even back then.
My mum does her own thing, my sisters do their own things, my brothers do their own things, and then we came together and made this idea. It’s important to all of us. It’s close to home. Do you know what was the saddest thing? Just before the pandemic I bumped in to an old school friend and he was homeless. I remember him at school and he was one of the ones whose parents were in a better position than most of us and then to him there, it was a shocking moment. I felt we are definitely going to do something, not just to change his life, but everyone who is in difficult situations. It’s a long process, and we’re still early on, I’m just pleased it’s up and running now. The public have shown that they care and more people have made a difference and a change to people’s lives.
Neville was keen to emphasise what a fantastic job Rashford did and what a huge achievement it was to change government policy, but the player’s focus was always just on helping those in need.
That’s the thing I didn’t really concentrate on too much, the government u-turn, that wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. I knew we might have to do that from when Boris made the decision to go public with what he said after we spoke to him, I knew that was the next thing we had to change. But it actually pushed me towards the public a bit more. We needed them as support and they were learning more about the topic, as I was learning more about it, because the numbers are more crazy than you could imagine. It was more about helping the individuals that needed the help.
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