How you can help create a snowstorm in Sunderland this Christmas

Sunderland Culture, which runs and programmes venues across the city, would usually be organising family workshops at this time of year.

Covid restrictions have made this impossible, so a Create a Snowstorm campaign has been launched instead.

Rebecca Ball, creative director for Sunderland Culture, explained: “With the current venue closures we are really missing our visitors this Christmas. To bring some seasonal cheer we are inviting residents to create a Snowstorm of paper snowflakes to decorate homes and offices across the city.”

To help families create their snowflakes together, Sunderland Culture has commissioned a special snowstorm activity sheet which can be downloaded from www.artscentrewashington.co.uk where there is also a film to guide you through the activity.

“We commissioned local artist and illustrator Bethan Laker to create activity sheets and she’s also made an easy to follow video. We hope as many people as possible will join in and we can create a snowstorm of snowflakes displayed in windows across the city for everyone to see and enjoy,” said Rebecca.

The project has been supported by Sunderland City Council’s COVID-19 Winter Community Support Grant programme. The grant paid for Bethan’s time and also enabled Sunderland Culture to deliver family activity packs through community partners such as Washington Food Bank.

The Arts Centre Washington and Museum Creative Age groups have taken part in online Zoom workshops with Bethan to make paper snowflakes to decorate the windows at Arts Centre Washington and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.

Related: Sunderland Culture deliver arts packs across the city.

Meanwhile, the Sunderland Culture team enjoyed an online snowflake-making workshop.

“We had great fun, though I have to say the snowflakes made by the Creative Age groups were far better than ours,” said Rebecca.

“We’re working hard to create and promote new opportunities for older, isolated residents and residents with pre-dementia diagnosis to engage in creative activities over the winter months and the snowstorm project has been part of that.

“We are actively looking for new members for Creative Age to start in the New Year so please get in touch if you are interested, or know someone who might be,” she added.

For more on Creative Age, go to https://sunderlandculture.org.uk/creative-age/

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