Rashford's free meal tweets made into Google map (Forum connection!)

[Northerner]

Footballer Marcus Rashford's campaign to provide free meals for children over half term has been turned into an interactive Google Map.

Joe Freeman has so far been manually inputting each individual venue offering to help provide food.

He is using tweets by Rashford, who is sharing messages from local businesses which have pledged to support his campaign.
Ministers have ruled out extending free meals beyond term time.

"I was eating my lunch, reading Marcus Rashford's tweets and thinking, 'This is amazing, wouldn't it be great if we could see them all in one place,'" Mr Freeman said.

"It was easy to do - I started off just by searching by each restaurant and the place they were from."

Mr Freeman is a father-of-two from south London. He says that while his family does not require free meals, there are some children in his local school who do.

Rashford's free meal tweets made into Google map

A man has made a Google map showing businesses offering free food for children during half term.

www.bbc.co.uk

Some of our longer-serving members may remember Joe Freeman, who was the Diabetes UK Digital Services manager in our early days here 🙂 Well done Joe! 🙂

 

[trophywench]

Wondered if it was the same chap cos yes, I do remember him. He got together with the lady at Desang to design a 'kitbag' didn't he?

 

[mikeyB]

Scotland, of course, just did continue free school meals for those in need. Because it was the right thing to do.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Scotland, of course, just did continue free school meals for those in need. Because it was the right thing to do.

As will many local councils in England (run by a variety of Parties).

(I'm inclined to agree with the government that this is probably not the best way to reduce food poverty. But if they really think that they should just go along with this for the moment, explaining that this isn't the long term solution and that they'd like to work on something more sensible to replace it in the future. But just rejecting this seems very stupid.)

 

[Vonny]

I hope those MPs who voted against continuing free school meals during holidays are now hanging their heads in shame....however, I don't expect they even know the meaning of the word. Makes my blood boil.

 

[mikeyB]

To quote the first sentence of the Guardian leader today, "What kind of party opposes feeding hungry children in the middle of a pandemic?" The answer, of course, lies in the justification. One Tory MP said "Many of my constituents would be appalled by the government interfering in their daily lives to ensure that their children do not go hungry". He was not alone. Some talked of nationalising children.

Even, believe it or not, Nigel Farage, said that it was mean, and is wrong.

The good folk and businesses that are helping out in England to provide meals, while in every other country in the UK the government provide them, should, one would have thought shame the English government. Marcus Rashford shamed them into a U-turn first time around. Who will do it now? Have the government forgotten that all these people have votes?

This is the government that limited child benefit to two children. That's eugenics. So is the current vote. Shame? They don't know the meaning of the word.

 

[mikeyB]

And now, not surprising, one Tory MP suggests that businesses which help these hungry children should not receive any government aid to stay afloat during the pandemic.So doubling down on cruelty. I don't name names, because you might have voted them in last time around. I don't blame you, but I bet you never expected this.

 

[Northerner]

The problem with councils and businesses providing the meals is that not all councils are able to do it and it may be rather haphazard with the businesses' ability to supply all. Plus, the money given to councils has already run out in many places, so it's a postcode lottery The government's justifications are completely tone-deaf and ideological, ignorant of the situation the country is in

The government are in a league of their own, but they are languishing at the bottom of the table because they keep on scoring own goals. Did they learn nothing from the summer? What was the point of turning the North against them and destroying trust when they were going to spend billions more anyway? The public are looking for kindness and compassion right now, not callousness, cruelty and confrontation