A Christian charity in Canada organised an Easter egg hunt with a difference this year, as a helicopter dropped 45,000 chocolate eggs to children waiting eagerly below.

#WeheartOttawa is the outreach arm of a church in Ottawa which puts on free events in the city.

Shawn Gabie and his wife Michelle, who are pastors at the Kingdom Culture church, booked the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum and rented a helicopter for a free family event on Easter Saturday.

“In ten days, just through social media, we had 5,500 people register online,” Mr Gabie said.

“We had to shut down registration. We didn’t expect that to happen. We thought we would have a couple thousand people show up, registering up until the last week.”

Organisers saw a video of a similar helicopter egg drop by another mega-church in the US, and wanted to recreate the success of the previous event.

Organisers told Christian news site Spur Ottawa they would use the publicity stunt to try and recruit new members of the church.

“Everybody who comes will get an invite to our Easter service, which is the next day. Easter is a time where people who never come to church will come."