Your Help Saved So Many Lives

Mary’s Meals UK boss Daniel Adams – a former My Weekly writer – tells us what the Helping Hand Appeal means to him

- Stuart Johnstone

Daniel Adams, Mary’s Meals Executive Director, UK, was vaguely aware of the charity before he started working there, but it was only through his work as a journalist for My Weekly that he began to fully understand the importance of the work carried out of the organisation.

For Daniel, it was a life-changing moment. In 2011 he had been tasked with interviewing Mary’s Meals founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow as part of the Helping Hand Appeal, but while his job for the day was to get a few quotes, he came away with something entirely unexpected – a whole new sense of purpose. “As soon as I spoke to Magnus, everything changed. As a journalist you interview someone, write it up then move on, but everything he said just stuck with me. There was pull. I knew this was something I wanted to be part of. When the opportunity to be press officer for Mary’s Meals came up, I jumped at it. It was no small feat for me to apply for a job at their HQ in Glasgow. I’m quite a homebody and it had to be very important for me to move.”