Two Port St Mary residents have made stellar and unique efforts to raise money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution through linked fundraising campaigns.

Daniel Grace and John Allcote, both staunch advocates of the RNLI and avid sailors themselves, have put together campaigns which so far has amounted to over £2,400.

Danny Grace, who works as a paramedic for the air ambulance service, launched his ‘one year on zero beer’ challenge in April 2022, where he didn’t drink any form of alcohol for 12 months until April 2023. So far, Danny has managed to raise £2,135 for the RNLI.

Danny said: ‘Considering I love a pint, I actually found it easy enough to abstain as I had a goal to aim for. I was also using the year off alcohol as a health kick but the incentive to achieve my goal was definitely to raise funds for the RNLI.’

In December last year, Danny noticed that a boat in Port St Mary harbour had broken loose of its bow mooring and was close to barging into other boats.

Recognising that this was John Allcote’s boat Misty, Danny called at his house to ask him if he wanted help to recover it.

When explaining the incident, Danny said: ‘John accepted my help and we rode out to his boat in a small tender. I towed Misty with a rope until I had her in shallow water, before snorkelling down to get the bow mooring chain off the bottom of the sea bed and re-attaching it to Misty.’

As a thank you for Danny’s help, John, a retired mechanic, proceeded to create a sculpture of a Severn class lifeboat made entirely out of scrap metal.

This sculpture, which took three months to make and is currently on display at the RNLI shop in Ramsey, has been sent to auction with the final proceeds going towards Danny’s fundraising campaign.

The auction has recently been extended to the end of July, with the current bid being at £300.

The sculpture is in memory of John’s great great uncle, Davey Kewley, who worked for the RNLI in the late 1800s.

Any money raised for the RNLI goes towards the running of the organisation, which includes the buying of equipment and training programmes.

If you wish to make a donation to Danny’s fundraiser, it can be found at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/psmrnli-dannysoneyearonzerobeer. More details about John’s auction can be found on “the JOKA - creative workshop” facebook page.