People donate thousands to food banks thanks to viral joke petition to 'Save The Sun Newspaper'

A crowdfunding campaign entitled "Save The Sun Newspaper" has gone viral and raised almost £5,000... but all is not what it seems.

The GoFundMe was started by Simon Harris, and purports to be raising money for "Britain's most-loved newspaper" which is "under threat".

To back up his point, Harris uses a screenshot of a BBC article saying the paper recorded a loss of £68m in 2019.

However, he's only looking to raise £10,000, which seems like a pretty insignificant amount, considering.

This may be the first clue that Simon Harris isn't actually desperate to keep the paper alive.

After saying he will use the money to buy copies of The Sun every day at his local shop and distribute them around the area, he adds a few caveats:

During the lockdown, it's taking ages to get my kids to bed every night, and usually by the time they have settled down my local Sainsbury's is closed. If this happens on any particular day, I will donate the money to local food banks instead.

That seems fair enough. What about if it rains?

I don't like rain, so if it is raining on any particular day I will donate any money collected to local food banks instead.

In fact, Harris seems to have a bit of an issue with weather in general.

I don't like sun or wind either, so if it is sunny or windy on any particular day I will donate any money collected to local food banks instead. I'm not fond of clouds either.

And then he remembers he's really not supposed to be going out at all, which puts a bit of a damper on the whole plan.

We should all be staying at home as much as possible at the moment to protect the NHS and save lives, and so if I think that there may be any people out and about in the United Kingdom at the same time as me on any particular day I will remain at home and donate any money collected to local food banks instead.

It turns out Harris isn't a massive fan of The Sun after all, and is just trying to find a fun way to donate to food banks, which we can surely all get behind, no matter what your reading material of choice.

At the time of writing the petition has only been up for about a day and has already reached almost half its goal (£4,950).

Harris posted the petition on his Facebook page where it received hundreds of likes and shares

It quickly found its way onto Twitter, where it's been tweeted thousands of times. People were amused.

But lots of people who aren't fans of The Sun were tweeting angrily about it, clearly seeing the headline without actually clicking through. It's a good lesson in actually reading all the way through something before making assumptions...

Most importantly though, it's managed to raise thousands of pounds for a worthy cause. The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge economic impact, while stockpiling has led to a decline in foodbank donations and social distancing means fewer volunteers are available.

All donations are surely a step in the right direction, even if the petition titles are a tiny bit misleading.