Entertainment
Gary Lineker donates to vandalised charity allotment after expressing fury over cruel prank: ‘Why would you ever do something like that?’-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro
He sent support soaring after tweeting about the situation.
The fooball pundit put his money where his mouth was as he also harnessed the power of his followers on Twitter (Picture: Getty/Carlyburd43/Tiktok)
Match of the Day host Gary Lineker has shown his support for a charity allotment, which provides fresh fruit and vegetables to those struggling amidst the cost-of-living crisis, after it was vandalised.
Carly Burd, from Harlow, Essex, created the A Meal on Me with Love initiative to help people on benefits, low-income earners and pensioners by providing organic produce from her back garden.
She has also started a Go Fund Me page for the prject, which has now earned over £95,000 since football star turned pundit Gary, 62, tweeted about her situation, as well as giving some of his own money to her cause.
Ms Burd, who is known as carlyburd43 on TikTok, shared with her 17,000 followers that she was left ‘absolutely heartbroken’ after discovering that salt had been poured over her plot, killing all her plants.
Holding back tears, Ms Burd said in her video: ‘I’m absolutely heartbroken. Someone’s jumped over in the night and put salt all over the land.
‘That means everything I’ve planted won’t grow and I can’t replant on it because it won’t grow.
Carly Burd shared her heartbreak over arriving at her allotment to find a vandal had covered all of the ground in salt, stopping anything from growing (Picture: Carlyburd43/Tiktok)
She showed off the piles of salt in her TikTok explaining the situation (Picture: Carlyburd43/Tiktok)
‘All the hours and hours and hours of work that we’ve put in is now dead, and they’ve done it everywhere.’
The gardener showed viewers her ruined allotment featuring rugged soil and piles of salt.
‘How could you do that?’ she asked.
One of the top donations on her Go Fund Me page is listed as being £500 from Gary Lineker, with the star tweeting out her video too and commenting: ‘Why would you ever do something like that?’
Gary Lineker was listed as one of her top donors and drove hundreds there to support in his wake after tweeting about the vandalism (Picture: Darren Staples/AFP)
Despite the vandalism, Ms Burd insisted that it ‘won’t stop me’ and pledges to continue her initiative.
‘You won’t stop me because I’ll just pick it all up and carry on… you won’t stop me whatsoever.’
Boxes containing fruit and vegetables grown in Ms Burd’s garden, as well as dry foods and other essentials, are distributed to households through the scheme.
The gardener, who lives with multiple sclerosis (MS) and lupus, shared her sympathy for those struggling through the cost-of-living crisis.
‘I’m on disability so I have to keep the cost down,’ she wrote on her Go Fund Me page.
‘I can’t sit back and watch people struggle; not being able to feed their kids or go without food so they can have the heating on.
‘Last year I went without heating, having MS with no heating is horrific. Why are we left to live like this?’
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Since prolific platform user Gary tweeted about her cause, the keen gardener’s fundraising for her project has soared – first to £63,000 in just over three hours, and now it’s rocketed past £95,000.
Ms Burd’s initial goal was £4,000.
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