A dad-of-two is running the Paris Marathon for Kelly Turner.

Martin Bowman, of Dover, will take part on Sunday, April 9.

He has joined the mass of fundraisers from across east Kent helping the teenager who has cancer.

Fundraising has gone on consistently since last year and by Monday the amount raised was £492,529, almost half the £1m needed for specialist treatment in America.

Mr Bowman also has two teenage daughters, one who has gone to the same school as Kelly, St Edmund’s RC in Dover.

He said on his JustGiving page: “Living in the same town and seeing everyone getting behind Kelly’s campaign has prompted me to do my own part towards helping.”

Mr Bowman, who works for the Idox Group software company, has been regularly training and he did the Deal Half Marathon last month.

The Paris Marathon is one of the most popular in Europe passing some of the French capital’s most famous sights. Part of the run is also alongside the River Seine.

Meanwhile Dovorian Andy Stroud is leaving tomorrow to trek to the Everest base camp, 5,184m high and then will aim to go further to the peak of Kala Patter at 5,545m.

He starts his Himalayan trek on Sunday, having by last Monday raised £800 in sponsorship money.

The world’s highest mountain is 8,848m.

Mr Stroud, 36, said on his JustGiving page: “I have done a few adventure holidays now but this will be my most challenging yet.”

Other fundraisers for Kelly over the next month include a Big Spring Sing, a multi-choir concert. It involves the joining of the community choirs Umea Pop & Rock from Sweden alongside the Lemon Zingers and Monday Music from Canterbury.

It is at St Peter’s Methodist Church, St Peter’s Street, Canterbury from 6.45pm on Saturday, April 1.

Kelly’s mother Linda said: “We are very pleased that we now have enough money for the surgery.

“It’s really scary because you don’t want your little girl operated on but the people doing it are the experts.”

Kelly has a rare cancer called desmoplastic round cell tumours.

A potentially lifesaving treatment is not available in Britain so she needs to go to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Treatment has been quoted at $1.2m – about £1m – and the rest of the money is needed for immunotherapy and radiotherapy to help make her completely well.

Kelly turns 17 on March 24 and has just passed her theory driving test.

The chemotherapy she is getting in Britain has shrunk the tumours, buying her time to study for her GCSEs in June before flying out for surgery. If she worsens in the meantime she will abandon her studies for the surgery.

Kelly is trying to catch up on her schooling as it was so severely disrupted by her illness last year when she was supposed to sit her GCSEs.

Mr Bowman can be supported via the website justgiving.com/fundraising/paris4kelly and Mr Stroud via justgiving.com/crowdfunding/TrekkingforKelly.