Bears of Sheffield sculpture trail gets underway across city
It's all to raise money for Sheffield Children's Hospital
The Bears of Sheffield trail officially gets underway today after the sculptures started popping up around the city.
They've all been painted by artists and sponsored by local businesses to raise money for the Children's Hospital.
It comes after the success of the Herd of Sheffield which saw elephants all around Sheffield five years ago.
Cheryl Davidson's the Project Leader - she says it's exciting to get going:
"The Bears of Sheffield has been quite a long time in the planning. We were meant to start the trail last year in July 2020. Then obviously Covid hit and we had to postpone which was really unfortunate. But we're so glad that we're finally able to release the bears now and can't wait for the trail to start.
"The large bears are sponsored by local businesses and community organisations and they've been designed and painted by local and national artists. The small 100 bears have been fundraised for and designed by schools and the designs are absolutely amazing - they've done a fantastic job."
The bears have been installed during the night since Wednesday in public places across the city like the Botanical Gardens and Park Hill Flats.
To spot all the bears, people are being encouraged to download an app or pick up a map for a voluntary contribution to the charity.
The sculptures will stay in their places until 29th September after which they'll be auctioned off.
The Herd of Sheffield was a huge success in 2016 when the same happened with elephant sculptures, raising more than £400,000 for Sheffield Children's Hospital.
Cheryl is hoping this year's project captures people's imagination just as much:
"The sculpture project as a whole is raising as much money as we can for Sheffield Children's Hospital. But I also think the trail brings a fun element to the city and to be honest I think it's what we're needing at this point in time as we're getting back to some sort of normality.
"It's the perfect time for it to be happening because I think we all just want a bit of joy throughout the summer and I think the bears will bring that to Sheffield."