Why thousands of angels are appearing across South Tyneside this Christmas

Around 2,000 knitted angels have been placed around schools, parks, businesses and pubs in the borough for people to find and take home.

People are encouraged to keep their eyes peeled around West Boldon, East Boldon, Boldon Colliery and Hedworth on Friday, December 18, if they want to find one.

The unique creations have been made by volunteers from churches across the Boldons during lockdown in a bid to bring joy to people this Christmas after a difficult year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Each angel has a tag attached which can be scanned on a phone to watch a special Christmas message which says: ‘May God bless you with joy, love and peace this Christmas’.

It is hoped that families and individuals will enjoy joining in the hunt for the hand-crafted symbols of joy, love and peace. Families are asked to take the angel home with them.

A spokeswoman for the Boldon Angels Team that made the angel creations, said: "We have used our time at home over the last couple of months well in creating these angels and can’t wait for people to find them on Friday morning.

"We had special services on Sunday at church to bless the angels as they prepared to fly out around our community.

“This has been a difficult year for so many people so we wanted to do this to share God’s love and to bless our community in public places and community places with a Christmas message of hope and love.

"The reason for wanting to take part in the project was to show, like that first Christmas long ago, even in the most challenging of times God’s love can and still does come down to Earth.”

All of the angels have spent 72 hours in quarantine prior to being put out around the community to keep everyone safe.

People who find an angel are asked to share a photo of it on social media using the hashtag #BoldonAngels.

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