AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD boy organised his own sponsored run and raised more than £500 for charity after seeing two of his grandparents treated for cancer in the last year.

Kind-hearted Joe Williams, of Clifton, York, wanted to do something to help after his granny Frances and granddad David were both diagnosed with cancer, so he planned a sponsored run for Cancer Research UK.

Mum Annabel said: “It was totally out of the blue. I didn’t even know he knew about sponsored runs or Cancer Research.”

Joe, and his friend Dan Oglesby, both pupils at Park Grove Primary School, ran five miles along the River Ouse. Both their dads went along, but the boys were determined to start and finish on their own.

The rest of their families waited to cheer them over the finish line outside Star Inn The City, on the edge of the Museum Gardens, where owners Andrew Pern and Justin Brosenitz were so impressed they sponsored the boys and gave them hot chocolate and brownies on the house.

Annabel said: “We’d already decided to take the boys in for a treat after the run, but when we went in they were wonderful with us.”

Running five miles was a challenge for the boys, Annabel said, but the excitement got them through and they have already smashed their target of £250 and raised more than £500 for the charity.

“We are really proud of them. Every time someone makes a donation they get excited again,” she added.

Her mother, Frances Martin, was diagnosed with skin cancer about a year ago. She has gone through several gruelling operations and is facing radiotherapy to beat the cancer, which has spread to her lymph nodes.

Three months after her diagnosis Frances’s husband, David, found out he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer after a visit to a well-man clinic. He has been through hormone treatment and radiotherapy, and the prognosis now looks good.

Annabel said “It has been very stressful, but I am just so impressed with Joe wanting to help and coming up with the idea himself.”

To sponsor Joe and Dan online go to: www.justgiving.com/DanJoe