The River Thames Boat Project has been providing invaluable services to the local Richmond community since 1988 and surprisingly it has roots in the purchase of a boat for a pound, 36 years ago.
But cast your eye to the present day, and the project relies on volunteers to keep it afloat.
Pippa Butterfield, the office manager of the River Thames Boat Project, said: “We’ve got 70 volunteers, which is what makes it run.”
She added her great appreciation for the willingness of the charity’s volunteers to offer their time and efforts.
The ‘Thames Discoverer’ and ‘Venturer’ are the only boats of their kind to offer wheelchair accessible cruises on this stretch of the Thames.
Pippa explained that disabled people are surprised because wheelchair access on boats isn’t common.
She said: “Society is becoming more aware of disabilities.”
She hopes that people will see there is more opportunity to make their own services accessible.
The ‘Discoverer’ offers day cruises available to anyone in the local community.
The ‘Venturer’ encompasses workshops for primary school children, such as ‘Drastic Plastic,’ which involves experiments that test the water quality such as pH testing.
They also offer ‘Ecoventurers’ which is geo-science based and teaches children about the local river environment.
Their efforts don’t just benefit the recipients of the project, but also the volunteers themselves.
“I mean, people wouldn’t volunteer if they didn’t like it, or they weren’t getting something back from it themselves. So for them, it gives them a big sense of community.
“One chap who was retired said you’ve got to remember, it gives us a reason for getting out of bed,” said Pippa.
However, this project has not always been smooth sailing.
Covid-19 was one of the greatest challenges that this project faced as the closure of schools and fear of outdoor trips led to less children being able to engage with the project.
Pippa said this caused a big financial impact for the project.
With these long-standing challenges the charity carried out regular fireworks evenings and quizzes raising more than £1000.
Pippa said that donations are crucial to allow the charity to continue running and noted that they were always looking for funders.
She urged the local community to help out as she stated that money has always been one of the biggest challenges facing this charity.
You can find more about the River Thames Boat Project here.
