Swimmers stood in unity with Ukraine by taking the plunge into the North Sea sporting blue and yellow shirts to raise money for those in need abroad.
Around 60 or so took to the beaches at King Edward's Bay, Tynemouth at 7.15am on Saturday with organisers hoping to raise vital funds and donations to go to those in need after Russia's recent invasion. Organising the event was Joanne Sime, alongside Sarah Thomas who participate in daily dips in the North Sea.
Speaking to Chronicle Live, 52-year-old Joanne spoke of how she came up with the idea.
Read more: Ukrainian South Tyneside A&E doctor's plea to raise money for ambulances on the front line
"I'm part of The Chatter Challenge, so I do this every morning right through the winter," she said, adding: "and because there's so many people dipping at the moment, we just thought it would be a great way to raise money for Ukraine."
She continued: "I got in touch with everyone on their different Facebook sites and said 'look let's do this on Saturday the 26th at 7.30am' and I asked if everyone could wear a blue or yellow t-shirt and bring £5 to the beach.
"Word got round and everyone got down there for about quarter past seven, and we've literally hit the best day ever because the sun was shining. Then what we did was we got everyone in to try and make a bit of a [Ukrainian] flag on the beach.
"Then we all went into the sea waist-deep, and tried to get everyone to do blue, yellow, blue, yellow all the way along.
"We did a really long line, and then everyone got photos taken and everything and we went for a little swim - a little dip."
At the time of writing Joanne and Sarah have managed to raise £1,005 for the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal - through kind donations both online and in person. This feat has also smashed the group's initial target of £100 tenfold.
However, the group didn't just stop at collecting donations in the form of money. Also present at the event was Cheryl Tanner, founder of New Wave to Life, who was there on the day to collect food, clothing and essential equipment to donate to Ukraine.
Regarding Cheryl's commitment and hard work, Joanne said: "Someone sent me a message telling me that another person was doing another dip on exactly the same day, at exactly the same time, and exactly the same place. So I thought, let's just do it together because the more the merrier.
"I got in touch with Cheryl and told her that I was doing exactly the same thing that she was doing, although she was collecting products whereas I was collecting money."
And as well as the sum of money raised by Joanne, Cheryl was able to collect generous donations to send off to Ukrainians in need.
Speaking to Chronicle Live, Cheryl added: "I started three dips from the first Saturday of this month - they were donating dips.
"So I was just doing supplies, and then Joanne got in contact so we decided to come together and that's what happened this Saturday.
"More supplies came through, people donated, we put links out - it's really raised more than what we thought. We only aimed for a hundred quid at first."
She continued: "As for supplies, there's baby formulas, paracetamol, ibuprofen, plasters, nappies, products for everything really. We got backpacks, a real mixture of everything.
"We didn't realise how many people were going to turn up. A lot of people like to donate and maybe not show up, but for everyone to come down and do the dip for the first time, it was just brilliant.
"One of my clients knitted a woolly hat in the colours of a Ukrainian flag - so blue on the top and yellow on the bottom, so we were wearing them. People brought spare t-shirts and everyone just came together and were like 'let's do this.'"
To read more about Joanne's fundraiser of if you are interested in donating, you can do so here. To find out more about the Chatter Challenge, you can visit their official Facebook page here.
