Churches in a city of sanctuary are providing asylum seekers, those in hospital and people using food banks with Christmas cards designed by school children.

The project run by Vision Wakefield, a collection of church leaders, is distributing 2,500 cards with the winning designs this Christmas.

Vision Wakefield’s Christmas card competition attracted more than 1,000 entries from school children encouraged to take part by the city’s Christian schools workers, after a successful competition last year.

The four winners will see their designs paraded round the city, which is one of the UK’s cities of sanctuary – a city which has signed up to be a place of welcome for refugees and people seeking sanctuary.

The design will be illuminated on digital billboards on vans, and 2,500 cards printed with the winning pictures on the front.

Tony Hodges, who heads up City Vision, which supports Vision Wakefield, said the project had the dual effect of reminding school children of the real meaning of Christmas, and of seeing how much more can be achieved when church leaders work together than individually.

He said: “The desire is to inspire hope which is what we all want to do at Christmas and to let people know that Christmas is about a lot more than they think it is.”

Mr Hodges described the competition as “one step of many steps” the churches are taking to win the city for Jesus.