A TEENAGER from Ryedale proved he had a lot of bottle when it came to fundraising for the school trip of a lifetime.

Alfie Spooner, 15, from Slingsby in Ryedale, was given the task of raising £4,000 for a school volunteering trip and found he could raise the cash from an unexpected quarter.

The trip, organised through his teacher at Ryedale School, with volunteering agency Camps International, involves two weeks in Costa Rica and two weeks in Nicaragua, helping to build a school and plant trees as part of a conservation project. The charity organises humanitarian projects that have a life changing impact on the communities they work in.

Alfie who lives at The Grapes Inn with his parents, Catharine and Leigh, said: “I never once thought I couldn’t do it, I just needed to work out how.”

His dad gave him an empty bottle from Slingsby Gin and challenged him to see if he could get £5 for it on eBay.

It turned out that people liked the bottles – he sold 30 - but, a long way from his £4,000 target, his mum was thinking of cancelling the trip. “It’s a lot of money to raise by anyone’s standards,” Catharine said. “At one stage I really freaked out about how we would do it. But the whole thing really has been his project from start to finish.”

Alfie experimented with turning different coloured glass bottles into lamps but liked the idea of a Slingsby Gin bottle soap dispenser.

He said: “I realised this would work, it’s something everyone can use. I could sell different colours as their bottles come in blue, black, pink and white.”

To market them he also developed a Facebook page called up-cycled bottles and advertised in the village magazine. Demand was steady but still not enough to reach his target. Plus he was running out of bottles.

Luckily for Alfie, the makers of the gin, Spirit of Harrogate came to the rescue and started donating empty bottles.

Marcus Black, Joint Managing Director, Spirit of Harrogate, said: “We heard about Alfie’s business venture and wanted to do something to help. It’s a brilliant cause and fantastic to see our beautiful gin bottles being up-cycled and used in people’s homes.”

Orders for the soap dispensers came flooding in after the social media post reached an audience of 42,000.

“I had to work hard to keep up with the orders,” Alfie said. “It was brilliant timing because people were buying them as Christmas presents. I know that some of the bottles have even gone as gifts to Germany and as far as America.

“If it hadn’t been for the social media post I definitely wouldn’t have sold as many. Word just spread so quickly from there and everyone wanted to support me.”

Alfie’s fundraising will see him volunteering in Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in Central America, where over 50% of households live in extreme poverty. In Costa Rica the students will be supporting projects to help manage deforestation.

Teacher Vicky Wright, who is organising the trip, said: “The students will gain a huge amount and grow an appreciation of the wider world. They will hopefully return as better people who want to continue to change the world we live in.“I’m extremely impressed by Alfie’s entrepreneurial approach to his fundraising. He has shown great resourcefulness and creativity, which has certainly paid off. I cannot wait to see what Alfie and the other students achieve while in Central America.” With a final £1,000 to raise, Alfie is counting down the days to July’s charity expedition with 12 schoolmates. He’ll have made and sold an estimated 250 soap dispensers and has plenty of happy customers into the bargain. Alfie will soon be applying to study business studies at York College.

“In the future I’d like to create some kind of product to make life easier for people. Something everyone will want. I’d like to be a billionaire so I can help the homeless and less fortunate people than me.”

To order one of Alfie’s soap dispensers phone 01653 628076, or message the Grapes Inn on Facebook, facebook.com/thegrapesinnslingsby/. They cost £14.95.