McDonald's Donates One Million Free School Meals

McDonald's has given away one million free meals to families for the upcoming half-term holidays, after Manchester United player Marcus Rashford launched a campaign to keep children who are usually offered free school meals fed over the break.

The fast-food giant was just one of many restaurants that have stepped up to feed families who would struggle over the holidays. Dozens of food outlets up and down the country have stepped up by offering free meals, after the government rejected a notion brought about by Labour MPs to feed school children up until Easter 2021.

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Their donations have been warmly received, with 22-year-old Rashford sharing restaurants who are offering free meals with his 3.6 million Twitter followers.

McDonald's also agreed to provide funds to FareShare to help re-distribute food to families who need it the most during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Announcing their news on Twitter, a spokesperson for McDonald's said: "We are proud to announce a partnership with @FareShareUK to provide 1 million meals for families in need.

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"Our funding will enable the urgent redistribution of meals across the next couple of weeks to those in greatest need."

Paul Pomroy, CEO of McDonald's for UK & Ireland, said of the deal with FareShare: "As a business we are committed to supporting and serving the communities in which we operate.

"In these challenging times, we know it's more important than ever to support those most in need."

Lindsay Boswell, FareShare CEO, added: "McDonald's is showing real leadership in supporting the most vulnerable in society to get access to healthy food at this critical time.

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"The funding will enable the equivalent of 1 million meals to be redistributed to our charity network very swiftly, and we are very grateful for their urgent support."

Rashford has been at the forefront of the campaign to ensure no child goes hungry due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

The footballer received an MBE earlier this year after he campaigned for the government to allow about 1.3 million children to claim free school meal vouchers in England's summer holidays.

Topics: Tasty Food, Food & Drink, Tasty

Kimberley Bond

Kim is a journalist at Tyla, and has previously worked at the Evening Standard, Radio Times as well as several national newspapers. A showbiz obsessive and a television fanatic, Kim is particularly interested in celebrity gossip, A-list events and the latest releases on either the big or small screen. Contact her at [email protected]

@0xKimberley