Ben McGlynn is only a few small steps away from reaching his $2,500 target as the first week of Steptember ticks over.

Kicking off on September 2, McGlynn undertook the challenge of clocking 10,000 steps a day over 28 days with the aim of raising awareness and vital funds for people with cerebral palsy.

Cerebral palsy is a permanent life-long ailment which targets the physical condition of the sufferer, effecting movement and posture. It affects about 34,000 Australians, mainly children, and is close to McGlynn’s heart having seen a family member deal with the debilitating condition since early childhood.

Within days of McGlynn launching his campaign on sydneyswans.com.au and his twitter account, the donations came flooding in with the small forward raising nearly $1000 before the challenge started.

About $1,800 had been collected as of Friday morning, which is the equivalent of 32 walkers, more than 20 hours’ worth of physiotherapy or 11 modified bikes which give children living with cerebral palsy the freedom to play with friends.

The total leaves only $670 to raise but McGlynn doesn’t plan to stop there.

“It has been such a positive response, family and friends have jumped on board either by donating or doing it themselves,” he said.

“The support from the Swans community has been great as well. The goal is $2,500 but hopefully I can raise more than that.”

With the help of a pedometer McGlynn can monitor how many steps taken in a single day and, on current pace, the daily target is being smashed out of the park having taken more than 100,000 steps overall.

“Obviously training has helped and playing (in the NEAFL) last weekend helped me get up to over 20,000 steps,” McGlynn said, admitting to tucking the pedometer in his shorts before training and games.

“We had a day off on Wednesday so I ended up in the 9000’s so I had to do a few laps around the kitchen. My wife was looking at me a bit funny.”

McGlynn is calling for generous supporters to dig deep and donate to this worthy cause while there’s a whole football club ready and willing to help out.

If you’d like to donate, click here to find McGlynn’s Steptember fundraising page or head to www.steptember.org.au for more information on how to help.

Every dollar raised will kick goals in the fight against cerebral palsy, with more than $2 million dollars raised across Australia already.