A FIT fundraiser will be putting her best foot forward at the weekend to help a little boy take his first steps unaided.

Jackie Rostill, 51, who lives in Marlborough Road, will be pounding the streets of Swindon on Sunday as she takes on the half marathon to raise funds for Robbie Davies.

Robbie, who is a pupil at Robert Le Kyng Primary School, suffers from spastic diplegia cerebral palsy and his family are fundraising for a £23,000 operation which could get him out of his wheelchair for good.

Jackie said: “My daughter, Holly, suffers from asthma. When she came back from university for the summer we both decided we wanted to get fit.

“I started running 200m and it nearly killed me – that was about June.

“Then over the summer holidays because Holly was home from uni we carried on running.

“Then, without telling me, Holly entered us both into the half marathon. She is running for Great Ormond Street because she spent time there when she was younger because of her asthma.

“I saw Robbie in the paper in August. The family were saying they needed to step up their campaign to raise money for him and I thought that was perfect.”

Jackie has raised £300 so far and is hoping to raise £500 towards Robbie’s operation.

“When it gets hard when I run I just think ‘I am doing this for Robbie’ and I think about what the money will do for him. Robbie is my inspiration,” she said.

Robbie was refused funding for the selective dorsal rhizotomy operation from the NHS last November, and the family have since been waiting for the South West Commissioning Body to decide whether the procedure would be commissioned.

The SDR operation became available at Frenchay Hospital, in Bristol, last year and Robbie had an assessment with the surgeon before the family submitted their application for funding.

The Davies family are part of our Help Us Walk campaign, which includes Jack Pike, Alycia Ellis and Corey Cummings.

The family continued their £23,000 campaign with a fundraising night at the Shield and Dagger pub on Saturday night.

The event included DJs and an auction and raised a total of £1,000 for Robbie. Their total now stands at more than £10,000.

To donate visit the website, which can be found at www.justgiving.com/kelly-davies.