The Times and Sunday Times have launched a joint reader appeal asking readers to support three Christmas charities which address urgent issues exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first charity FareShare is backed by superstar England and Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford and former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson to help tackle food poverty experienced by the 2.4 million children whose families cannot afford all the food they need.
23-year-old Rashford was made an MBE last month for services to children after spearheading a free school meals campaign in association with Fareshare which aims to save more than 24,000 tons of nutritious food from going to waste each year.
All donations to the food charity through the Times’ appeal – up to a total of £2m – will be doubled by Sir Alex and billionaire philanthropist Sir Michael Moritz.
The other two charities benefitting from papers’ appeals are Sported, which uses sport to help young people overcome challenges, and Tusk, an animal protection charity for endangered species across Africa which aims to reduce conflict between animals and humans.
Donations to Tusk will be doubled up to a value of £150,000 by the Nick Maughan Foundation, run by a British businessman who donates to educational and environmental causes.
This year has seen enormous generosity from readers across newspapers including a record £1.1m in donations for The Times Coronavirus Charity Appeal which helped charities Family Action and The Big Issue Foundation.
Make your Christmas appeal donation here: https://times.ctdonate.org/
Make a #BrumWish come true with BirminghamLive’s gift campaign
Meanwhile in the regional press, BirminghamLive has initiated a buy a gift campaign to help thousands of children in Birmingham who face Christmas without a proper home this year.
The campaign, Grant a Christmas #BrumWish has been set up with the aim of buying presents for over a thousand young people sharing beds in B&Bs and for others in Women’s Aid refuges.
Using Amazon Wish List, the Reach-owned news site has enabled readers to personally buy a present to be delivered to kids before Christmas Day.
