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

Alfie Spooner, 15, from Slingsby, 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. 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.

With a final £1,000 to raise, Alfie is counting down the days to July’s charity expedition.

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.