THE Royal National Lifeboat Institution last night sent its thanks to visitors to Liverpool’s Tall Ships festival after raising £31,000 in one weekend.
The amount was more than double the amount hoped for by the charity.
It was aiming to raise £13,000 over the course of the five-day visit to fund a relief Arancia rescue boat – to be called Liverpool Tall Ships 08 – and trailer to be used by RNLI beach lifeguards.
But the final total of £31,000, raised from a combination of collections, souvenir sales and raffle ticket sales, far surpassed the RNLI’s expectations, said area fundraising manager Lisa Cooke.
She added: "The whole event was incredible and we were overwhelmed by how generous visitors were. We would have been happy to raise enough to fund the Arancia, which was our target, so to raise more than twice that amount is just wonderful. Visitors were really interested to see our education and lifeguard displays and talk to us about the RNLI work.
"A lot of people who came to our marquee didn’t know the RNLI is a charity but when they learnt that we depend on donations to keep afloat, they were happy to make a contribution.
"We had a lot of wonderful volunteer collectors helping us throughout the event and, without them, we wouldn’t have been able to raise this amazing amount.
"A big thank you to everyone who helped us, to the event organisers for allowing us to take part and of course to all the generous people who contributed to our fundraising.’
The money raised will be split between the Arancia rescue boat, general RNLI charity funds and the RNLI Hoylake Appeal, which is aiming to raise £2m to part- fund a new lifeboat station and lifeboat for Hoylake.
The sum of £2,700 alone was raised by ticket sales for an RNLI Hoylake Appeal raffle at the Tall Ships festival, with a top prize of a VW Polo.
More than one million people saw the Tall Ships over the course of the long weekend, prior to the start of the five- week race, with the Albert Dock declaring it was its busiest trading weekend to date.
Hotels were full and it was estimated media coverage exposed Liverpool to 10m people.
* TO BUY raffle tickets or to contribute to the appeal, call 0845 650 3999, log on to www.rnli.org.uk/hoylakeappeal or send a donation to RNLI Hoylake Appeal, Admail 4049, Hoylake, CH47 1AA.
