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Cardboard lifeboats and other crafty crafts
Meet Ghilly, who created his own lifeboat costume for World Book Day and find activities to help you and your young ones get creative with the RNLI.
World Book Day is a chance for young people across the UK and Ireland to celebrate their favourite books. For one lifeboat superfan, there was only one choice – To Save Every One, a book retelling the dramatic history of the RNLI.
Ghilly created his costume from bits and bobs he had around the house. 'I'd forgot that it was World Book Day,' says Nadine, Ghilly's mum. 'So he made it himself the night before.'
The lifeboat crew kit was a yellow Pudsey bear onesie and the lifejacket was his mum's paddleboarding buoyancy aid. The lifeboat was built out of an old Amazon box and hand-painted by Ghilly. The number and logo stickers required some extra help. 'He went round his grandad's and printed off all the stickers for it because he said; "I'm not going to have time to make it as I want,"' says Nadine.
The photo of Ghilly posing proudly in his costume was shared on the RNLI social channels and was met with messages of approval from supporters of all ages.
Ghilly's dream is to be a captain of a big ship one day and he is already training to be a lifeguard. But his growing love for the RNLI could see him become crew one day. Ghilly has already helped RNLI lifesavers by hosting a fundraiser at his school selling sweets, raising £77. And for his Christmas present last year, Ghilly was treated to a trip to RNLI College in Poole where he took a tour and even had a go on the simulator.
'If I could get Ghilly's personality and bottle it up, I would make millions of pounds because he's just really inspiring,' says proud mum Nadine. 'He wakes up in the morning and he's so happy about life. He's loved by everybody, everyone at the school thinks he's fantastic. He's just a joy.'
Activities for you and your young ones
If Ghilly's story has inspired you to put your crafting skills to use, or you'd like to get your young ones interested in the RNLI with some fun activities you can do together, why not give one of the projects below a go? These have all come from the Crew Room, a place for our Storm Force young members to explore more about the RNLI and filled with projects, games and videos to excite, entertain and teach vital water safety skills.
Make a Shannon lifeboat
Download this papercraft template and build your very own Shannon class lifeboat.
Make a hovercraft
Learn about the principles behind the RNLI's rescue hovercraft with this fun science experiment.
Make a tornado
Use this simple science experiment to create a water vortex – your very own miniature tornado!
And if you and your crew fancy a fun challenge, you can paint and assemble your very own Shannon class lifeboat with an Airfix model kit from RNLI Shop.
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