Manchester United star Marcus Rashford has credited his mum Melanie for inspiring his efforts to lead the fight against child poverty.
Rashford led a successful campaign to extend the provision of free school meals for vulnerable children during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
The Man United and England forward had persuaded former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to provide free meals to vulnerable school children during the holidays.
Rashford’s efforts led to him being awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list the same year.
The 25-year-old’s campaigning on the issue had been influenced by the efforts of his mother Melanie, a single parent, to provide for him and his four siblings.
Melanie had told a BBC documentary: ‘Sometimes we didn’t even have a loaf of bread in the house. It’s embarrassing to say but we didn’t.
‘But I wouldn’t tell someone I was struggling. either. It was embarrassing.
‘That’s why I had three jobs. I just had to try and work and get money from working.’
Rashford, talking to the Overlap in partnership with Sky Bet, admitted to Gary Neville that he had been unaware of his mother’s sacrifice at the time.
‘At the time I never knew because she would always have a smile on her face,’ he said.
‘She is the toughest out of all of us – she still is now – nothing can break her.
‘My mum is a special person. I only realised how tough it was for her when I moved out the house.’
Melanie previously revealed that she had asked Man United to allow her son to move to their residential programme early, admitting she did not have the budget to nutrition to prepare him for professional football.
Rashford said that despite the families’ struggles, his mother had always ensured that they gave back to the community.
The Man United star also revealed how an encounter with an old school friend, who had become homeless, had also pushed him towards his fight against poverty.
‘I remember a couple of times when we used to get the bus into town, we passed a lot of homeless people and mum would give me the last couple of quid in her purse to give to a homeless person, even back then,’ Rashford said.
‘We came together and made this idea, it’s important to all of us and it’s close to home.
‘Just before the pandemic, I bumped into an old school friend, and he was homeless. He was one of those kids at school whose parents were in a better position than most of us and then to see him there, it was a shocking moment.
‘It pushed me back a little bit and I thought, we’re going to try and do something to not just change his life, but everyone’s lives that are in difficult situations.
‘It’s a long process, we’re still early in the process, but I’m just pleased that it’s up and running now because step by step it takes more care of itself.
‘The public have shown that they care, and I feel like more people have made a difference now and made a change to people’s lives.
‘We needed them as support and they were learning more about the topic, as I was learning about the topic as well, because the numbers are crazier than what you could imagine, especially in Greater Manchester so it was more about helping the individuals that needed the help.
‘I wish the [Government] U-turn never happened and we just managed to get it done straight away, because at the end of the day we lost a little bit of time. Time is important and a lot of things can happen in a short space of time.’
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