Luton Town have announced that they are fully behind Manchester United and England striker Marcus Rashford’s call for the provision of free school meals to be extended into the school holidays – and will be feeding pupils at St Matthews Primary School next week.
The 22-year-old is spearheading a grassroots campaign to help end child poverty after his experiences growing up and was recently made an MBE for his efforts.
The initiative comes in the week that a motion on providing 1.4 million disadvantaged children with £15-a-week food vouchers during holidays until Easter next year was voted down by Tory Government.
The Hatters have said of Rashford, he “has heroically been campaigning on the issue in recent months. LTFC fully supports Marcus in his work.”
The Hatters have added that they ‘firmly believe that child poverty has to be eradicated and have actively supported initiatives to assist this in our town and locally, as evidenced by our recent charity partnership with Level Trust, our continued support to Luton Foodbank and our long-standing commitment to the Real Living Wage.
‘As such, we have arranged for 250 meals per day next week to be available for the pupils of St Matthew’s Primary School in Luton.
‘All meals provided by the club will be, free of charge, prepared by our pre-tested chefs with ingredients appropriate for all, nutritious and healthy, based upon lunches supplied to our professional athletes.
‘Any food that is left over will be taken to another of our club charity partners, Luton Foodbank, to be distributed to the wider population in the town.’
Details on distribution of the meals will be shared with those eligible at St Matthew’s by Monday, with further information to follow on club channels and the Foodbank’s.
Luton Town Ladies Football Club have also announced plans to help, setting up a JustGiving page to raise £250 to provide school lunches for children in the Luton area who do not have access to the food voucher scheme over half term. At the time of writing, it had already exceeded it’s target by 144 per cent.
