A new Pride of Yorkshire campaign in support of Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity has seen 150 lion cubs distributed to community groups and schools across the city.
The project aims to push art, community spirit and creativity back to the forefront of local communities, whilst raising awareness and funds for the hospital.
Lu Watkins, an Outreach Officer with the Watch Page Hall Grow group, said that the initiative is about “engaging the whole community.”
“We’ve brought the lion cub to several different spaces around Page Hall and achieved some real growth, getting input from everybody and making something together.”
Each group received one blank lion club, sponsored and funded by businesses across Sheffield, to be decorated however seen fit.
The Page Hall cub, that is yet to be named, has been coloured with a series of fingerprints, added by community members from across the area, to signify unity.
The main design for the young lion was created by a year five pupil at Whiteways Primary School.
Ms Watkins added: “The idea was to get as many people as possible, and not just from one space, to come together and to create this image of growing together.”
It is just one of many community projects run by the Watch Page Hall Grow organisation, many of which are funded by a National Lottery grant, called Nature Recovery Sheffield.
These include weekly street clean-ups and upkeep of a fruit and vegetable garden at Oasis Community Space, among others.
“It’s quite organic in the sense that we respond to events and ideas happening in the community, like a school fair, but it’s important that we trial different things so as not to exclude anyone,” Lu said.
Page Hall also works closely with the Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust to improve green spaces across the local area.
Elesha Sayles, Community Nature Advisor at the Trust, said: “We’re hoping the work will have a massive impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing and increasing people’s knowledge about nature in the spaces around them”
It has not yet been decided where the cub will be displayed following the completion of its design, but it will appear as part of the main Pride of Yorkshire campaign feature at Meadowhall shopping centre over the summer.
Currently, shoppers can see an installation of the adult lion statues, which are still being painted.