Christmas trees are popping up across Barking Riverside, have you found one?

There are 6 trees across the area for neighbours to decorate and personalise. In the run up to Christmas when we would normally love getting together to get into the festive mood, we were determined to find a way to still share hope and something together.

If you would like to get involved, get in touch with your street host, drop us a message here or on 07493616169 and we will get a bag of wooden decorations to you ready for you to personalise and hang. You might want to add hopes or dreams for the year ahead, some fantastic memories of this past year, or loved ones that you’re missing. Add colour, add pictures and vibrancy! Make each tree unique and there will be an award for the best decorated tree.

Whilst everyone loves a bit of tinsel, we do ask that you don’t add your own decorations, but focus your creativity on bringing colour to the wooden decos. We’ve worked to get decorations that will be kind to the environment, and we don’t want the trees shedding plastic.

You might spot that each tree has a name, which has come from your neighbours and us. As a church community we have been praying for the trees and their locations, the names represent what we have felt is an important symbol for each place. You might find the tree called Hope, or Joy. Our prayer is that each tree would be symbolic of it’s name in those places. Watch this space to find out more!

Find a map of the trees below, take a walk, explore our neighbours creativity and the names of the trees.

We want to say a big thank you to Barking Riverside Ltd for helping coordinate the install of these trees and making sure it can happen safely for residents. And also a big thank you for Acre our local Landscape Architect, for providing and installing all the trees. (And to the awesome Triangoals for their FREE TOY GIVE AWAY! Oh yes….check it out here…plus some carolling on the 19th!)

The plans for the trees had to move quickly so we were limited in the numbers that we could facilitate this year. However, they’re spread across the estate and Elena in Riverside Coffee Lounge is really kindly hosting one, which is accessible to everyone, so we hope there is a tree somewhere that anyone that wants to can get involved with. Please get in touch, if this is something you want to help make happen next year and if it goes well, who knows we might be able to see more trees springing up near you next year!