THE caring nine-year-old son of a Worcestershire Royal Hospital charity fundraiser is following in his mother's footsteps.

Dan Griffiths is supporting the homeless, Home-Start UK and the RSPCA with litter-picking being his first sponsored activity.

His mother Mandy collects toys at Christmas for children in hospital with her most recent appeal proving the most successful yet.

She said: "You could say Dan is following in my footsteps but he really wants to do his own fundraising.

"We set him an initial target of £100 and he reached £80 quickly so we upped that target to £150.

"Dan originally wanted to do it for the homeless because during Christmas time he saw a lot of people out on the streets and he was asking a lot of questions about it.

"He saw someone sat down with just a blanket to keep them warm and he wanted to help.

"Dan also loves animals and so he decided he wanted to raise money for the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) too.

"And he also wanted to support Home-Start (which helps families with young children through their challenging times) which I have already fundraised for.

"So now he has three charities to raise money for which gives him an incentive to keep it going and see out things.

"It is all off his own back and there has been no initial encouragement from me. But now he's asked if he can do it, as his mum, I will be supporting him."

Mother-of-four Mandy thanked Councillor Fran Oborski MBE, The Civic, Stourport, Hannah Rose, Jane Marks and Sam and Kevin Andrews for their support among others.

The family is from Kidderminster and Dan attends Comberton Primary School.

Over the Christmas period Mandy dropped off gift bags and toys at the Worcester hospital's Riverbank Ward in around her seventh year of doing the delivery.

She said the response to a Worcester News article was great as the 43-year-old collected plenty of toys from across Worcestershire and had enough to do a second new year delivery this month.

The family is open to ideas for Dan's fundraising with more details at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Daniel2014homelessfundraising