YOUNG Lewis Kelly, left, has become the man who can.

For Lewis, 12, has persuaded Whitbread's Samlesbury brewery to send 10,000 damaged empty aluminium cans to BBC TV's Blue Peter appeal.

Lewis, of Sutcliffe Terrace, Belthorn, was so touched by his favourite programme's latest appeal to raise cash for children in Mozambique, he wrote to the brewery for help.

And brewery bosses were so impressed by the schoolboy's initiative that they agreed to help and delivered the cans to a recycling plant in St Helens.

Paul Allera, distribution operations manager at Whitbread's Shadsworth Distribution Centre, said: "Whitbread in the Community tries to use all of its resources, including time, money and redundant equipment for the good of the local community.

"Whitbread usually recycles damaged cans itself, but we were so impressed by Lewis's letter that we decided to give him our support."

Lewis personally supervised when a dray wagon was filled with the cans.

The cash raised by the programme's New Futures Appeal will go towards three new primary schools, teaching centres and educational equipment for some of the poorest children in the world.

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