West Ham United Joint-Chairman David Sullivan has made a personal £25,000 donation to FareShare UK, which will go towards free meals through the Child Food Poverty Taskforce, founded by the inspiring Marcus Rashford MBE.
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.
The nutritious redistributed food reaches charities across the UK, including school breakfast clubs, older people’s lunch clubs, homeless shelters and community cafes. Every week, FareShare provide enough food to create almost a million meals for vulnerable people.
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
Joint-Chairman David Sullivan
Mr 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 donation from the Joint-Chairman is made on top of the work of West Ham United are helping to tackle the national issue of holiday hunger, inactivity and isolation in children and young people across east London and Essex, through their innovative new 'Holiday Hunger' programme, which has been running for two years.
The Holiday Hunger programme offers a free multi-sport and health-based programme for 5-11 year olds whose families are eligible for free school meals, tax credits, Jobseeker’s Allowance and any other kind of benefit. All courses see the participants engage within multiple sporting activities such as football, cricket and handball, while also receiving at least one healthy meal and snack per day.
So far, Holiday Hunger has delivered over 3,000 meals across more than 50 sessions in school holidays in east London and Essex, providing more than one million calories to children – a programme which is running in this October half-term and over the Christmas holidays. What is more, during COVID-19, West Ham United and the West Ham United Foundation adapted their delivery, supporting holiday hunger and foodbanks, dedicating more than 350 hours to delivering over 1,100 bags of food to those most vulnerable.