A new arrival joins East London’s trendy mono-food scene this week, opening on Friday 29 May for one day only. The pop-up, called H2Only Bar, doubles as a call to action by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It is promoting the charity’s H2Only fundraising challenge, starting at 5pm on Friday 2 June, where supporters commit to drinking only water for 10 days.
Taking stark minimalism to a painfully sharp extreme, the bar simply houses a single cold water tap, together with cardboard cups. Best of all, each drink is free – so you can get as many rounds in as you like while encouraging all your friends to sign up to the challenge.
Often referred to as the fourth emergency service, the RNLI relies on public donations for funds – but awareness of the charity is low inland with 40% of people* who live more than an hour from the coast totally unaware of the charity. This is despite the fact millions of people flock to the coast each summer. Yet the reality is, wherever you live in the UK or Ireland, if you get into trouble in the sea or during flood situation it’s the RNLI’s lifeguards and volunteer crews who’ll come to the rescue. In 2014 the RNLI saved 460 lives, rescuing over 10,000 people.
The H2Only Bar aims to stop East Londoners in their tracks – calling for as many people to sign up to the challenge as possible between now and the 2 June at h2only.org.uk, where the H2only app can be downloaded for support during the 10-days challenge.
RNLI lifeboat Helm Andy Mayo, from Chiswick lifeboat station has been crew for the charity for 21 years: ‘We rely on public funding to help us stay on the water rescuing anyone who needs our help, so we’re asking people to stay on the water themselves for 10 days from 2–12 June. Our temporary bar is a fun, cheap way to recruit Londoners and raise awareness of the amazing work the RNLI does. It’s easy to sign up, just go to h2only.org.uk where you can get a JustGiving page set up straight away – the sooner you start the more you’ll raise, the money you spend drinks over the 10 days will soon add up. It costs over £410k a day to run the lifesaving service, and during the same 10 days in June last year the RNLI saved 9 lives, rescuing 478 people.’
