A SCHOOLBOY who has been inspired by footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to tackle child hunger has been encouraging major supermarkets to implement new ways of raising money for food banks.

Nine-year-old Leo Slevin has written to all the major supermarkets in the UK with new ideas of tackling food poverty, including the idea of having a button on their tills to enable immediate donations to food banks.

Leo’s dad Simon Slevin, said: “Leo is a very sensitive young man, and he feels other people’s sadness.

“He looks at Marcus Rashford and the things he’s been doing with food poverty and that’s really inspired him.

“His school do collections for the Trussell Trust food bank and they really try and help.

“He’s been looking into it and came up with the idea of having a button which you can put on the tills or card machine, which basically means when you pay - like you do when you go to a restaurant - the card machine would ask you if you want to donate to a food bank or charity, or the cashier could give you that option when you pay at the till.

“Sometimes the food donations at the supermarket can be full of similar products, so this way the food bank could use the money donated to buy exactly what they need.”

Simon said that many supermarkets have responded saying they will look at Leo’s idea, including Waitrose who sent him a £20 gift card to buy products for the food bank, and said they will pass his idea onto their IT team.

Leo, who attends King's St Alban's school in Worcester, is also doing a sponsored walk up the Malvern Hills with his dad to raise money for food banks.

Leo, from Whittington, said: “The idea that people in the UK and especially children go to sleep at night with empty tummies really makes me sad. Hopefully my sponsored walk will raise lots of money for food banks and the supermarkets add a donation button to their tills too.”

To donate: https://bit.ly/3iddfej