A TODDLER will be making the trip of a lifetime this month after generous fundraisers helped raise £60,000 for an operation to help him walk.

Three-year-old Harry Kirkman from Melksham has cerebral palsy and last October his mum Charlotte Deegan launched a mammoth challenge to raise the funds to pay for selective dorsal rhizotomy treatment to reduce the spasticity in his legs.

Now his family is gearing up for a trip to Missouri in America later this month in hope that the treatment, which is not available on the NHS, will enable him to walk unaided.

Miss Deegan said: “It doesn’t feel real yet to know that we have actually hit our target. It is such a ball of emotion because I don’t know whether to feel excited or worried.

“Raising £60,000 is something I knew I couldn’t do on my own and the journey we have come through has been hard but amazing. The community has come together for a little boy and I can’t put into words how happy that makes me.”

The money has been raised through cake sales, charity sport games and even a skydive and the family, who have never been abroad before, said that while they know the trip will be difficult for Harry, they are looking forward to the adventure ahead.

Along with older brother Callum and dad Matt, the family will spend around four weeks in the US where Harry will have daily physiotherapy sessions for three weeks after the operation.

After his return he will need physio three times a week and hydrotherapy.

The 27-year-old mum added: “I walk down the street and people stop me to ask how we’re getting on with raising the money. People in the community have been brilliant. It’s so heart-warming.

“The physio after we get back is really important. In order to recover he has to go through two years of intense physio and that is why the sum was so vast. We have put all the newspaper clippings and photos in a scrapbook so that when Harry is older he will understand that thousands of people helped raise the money to help him. I think it is important that he is aware that the community rallied together to help him as well as his mum and dad.”