Midhurst boy 'supported by all' with charity challenge for RNLI

Nathan Jones at Selsey Lifeboat station.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboats in the South East protect hundreds of communities through their 24-hour search and rescue service. They rely on the safest, most reliable lifeboats and modern stations to launch from.

Nathan Jones, a 10-year-old boy from Midhurst took it upon himself to raise money for the charity leading up to their 200th Birthday. He said: “I’m walking 200 miles from the 12th of December to the third of March. I’m doing it because I like going to our closest RNLI in Selsey. I really like seeing the boats.”

Their first group walk was a two-and-a-half-mile festive walk around Midhurst that took place on Sunday, December 17. He’s now almost 100 miles down of his 200-mile walk to mark the RNLI’s 200th birthday in March. The next public walk will be their final walk on Sunday, March 3. They’re looking for some local corporate sponsors for this one too.

Nathan has been 'supported by all' with his charity challenge for the RNLI.

A total of 28 people joined along with Nathan and his family on the walk. Nathan’s Aunty Jenny Jackson said: “We set off from the Grange community centre and all had a good dance to the Cha-Cha Slide song before we set off!”

"We walked round up to Cowdray Castle and then went through Easebourne. It was really lovely. There were quite a lot of people that supported our group of people on the way saying good luck to us. The whole event was really nice and had a great community feel to it.”

“Nathan absolutely loved it. Him and one of his friends Grace were just hilarious on the day. They were talking to everybody loads about what they were doing and absolutely thriving in it. He was really chuffed that so many people turned up and all the kids just had a brilliant time.”

“We’ve had so much support from everyone, from local businesses, Nathan’s local cubs group and loads more people. If we add the offline donations we’ve had to our JustGiving donations, he's raised over £1200 now. A big thank-you to everyone that have sponsored us so far.”

You can visit their JustGiving link by looking up the following link: “https://www.justgiving.com/page/nathans-200-miles-rnli?utm_medium=qrcode&utm_source=offline.