When most people hear the word lifeboat, they think of the large blue, white and orange boats that operate out of coastal towns.
But around the country, there are nearly 100 independent lifeboats – including York Rescue Boat. The Go Orange for Independent Lifeboats campaign is aimed at raising funds to support these charities.
The challenge is simple: all we ask is on Friday 22nd or Saturday 23rd March you wear something orange and donate £1 to York Rescue Boat.
If you want to do more, like an orange-themed bake sale, we’d love that too! If orange is not your colour, and you want something more discrete, we sell charity wristbands, pin badges, cufflinks and other merchandise on our website.
Non-uniform day
You can also send and share your pictures on the day, and we will share and help promote you and your business via our social media.
With your help we aim to raise as much of our yearly running costs (approximately £21,000) over two days, allowing the rest of the funds we raise across the year to be invested in training and equipment to further develop our lifesaving service.
If you would like to sign up your group, school, college or business to support us please contact us by email here.
Why does York have a lifeboat?
North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue have boats at York and Selby, North Yorkshire Police had also rescued a number of people from the water, and members of the public have also effected rescues.
Between us all, and the campaigns to educate the public about water safety, we went from five river deaths in one year to a year and a half with no deaths at all.
After months of fundraising, starting off with selling at car boot sales out of the back of a pick-up truck, the first York Rescue Boat, Jorvik Guardian (a RIB – Rigid Inflatable Boat) was launched to provide safety cover near bridges during the 2015 Tour de Yorkshire.
Since then, a further two boats have been bought: Jorvik Saviour (a smaller RIB) and Jorvik Protector, both mobile for incidents around the area and alongside our nationally deployable flood team.
Jorvik Protector is a RescueONE Connector boat specifically designed to be used during floods, with a larger casualty capability and able to go through flooded streets as it only needs six inches of water to operate in.