A DARLINGTON 8-year-old, inspired by Marcus Rashford, is giving up his presents in order to raise money for a local foodbank.

Miles Ferguson, from Darlington, after seeing a documentary on Marcus Rashford was inspired to follow in his footsteps, giving up his birthday presents and instead donating the money to Darlington's Food for Thought foodbank.

At the time of writing, the GoFundMe has raised £530 smashing its original goal of £100.

Susannah Ferguson, Miles' mam and also from Darlington, said: "He’s a proper little kind soul is Miles, he really struggles with people who are less fortunate and it really cuts him deep when he sees a homeless person and he always wants to help people.

“We’ve always been talking about as he’s got older for him to try and do some volunteering, which has been difficult this year.

“So when we watched the Marcus Rashford documentary and we talked about what he’s going to do for his birthday this year because he’s not going to have his usual party with all his friends, he said he would like to raise some money and if there was anywhere local that he could help feed the children that are not getting what they need for lunch.

“I have a friend who does a lot with the Food for Thought foodbank so I got into contact with her to see if we would be alright to donate there, and she said it would be a massive help.

“We thought we would be quite humble with our target of £100 and he’s already got to £310 in the space of 24 hours, so he’s absolutely buzzing.

“He’s had loads of different things that he’s wanted to do to help people and this is one of the things, because normally his friends will spend around £10 to £15 on his birthday present so I thought instead of doing that we thought we would do this.

“We said, even if it’s just 50p it’s better than nothing.

“I think he likes doing things like this because he feels things quite deeply, we always call him our little empath, because he always feels things deeply.

“When he watches things, he really soaks things up, for a little boy he’s a very sensitive kind soul so I think he would love to try and do more.

“I always say that when he grows up he really needs to do something where he’s helping people because he’s such a happy little boy.

“He brings so much joy to people, he needs to make sure that he keeps that spirit alive and as parents we should try and encourage that behaviour.

“We’re very proud of him, he loves to share anything he has, he’s a special little persona actually."

“He said to me this morning, ‘oh mummy, if I raise enough money I might get to meet Marcus Rashford’”

You can donate to Miles's GoFundMe, here