Mandela Day: Making the 67 minutes count

DIFFERENT organisations benefitted from Mandela Day on Monday, 18 July, when groups and individuals got involved to help during their 67 minutes of community upliftment.

Officers and soldiers from the Natal Field Artillery spent their 67 minutes on Mandela Day cleaning up the garden and extending the vegetable garden and planting new seeds at Coronation House, Natal Settlers’ Memorial Homes.

According to Major Craig Nel, as part of social responsibility, all units were required to get involved in a project as a contribution towards Mandela Day.

“We want the elderly at the home to see that we as the army also help people. We are not just a fighting force to defend the country, we also assist where we can. We also wanted to remind people that there still is an army. A lot of the elderly men at the home fought in WWII, so we wanted to show them the modern army, which is giving back to the people,” he said.

STAFF from WSI, a local digital marketing agency, built a tyre garden at HOLAH baby house on Mandela Day.

The garden will separate the play area and the front of the property at HOLAH’s new premises at 4 Bottomley Road, Umbilo.

“I heard about HOLAH from a contact and when I saw their Mandela Day wishlist on Facebook, I wanted to get involved. Our company tries every month to do something to help the community,” said Mel Gard.

STAFF from Happy Feet Pre-Primary School visited HOLAH on Monday to hand over donations and to spend time with the children.

Leanne Lorrance and Kim Brown, co-founders of HOLAH, were overwhelmed with their generosity and donations of clothes, toys, toiletries, napkins and food, which will go a long way in helping them to support and care for the children at the baby house.

THE Salvation Army’s Montpelier Corps held an outreach on Thursday, to commemorate Mandela Day.

Paul Kidgell said the church catered for 150 homeless people from the area.

The people were given a shirt, toiletry pack, beanie, sandwiches, fruit and soup.

“We give credit to the Lord for the amazing co-operation from the community to support this event. Standard Bank donated most of the toiletries and we had various other sponsors,” he said.

He also thanked the volunteers who gave their time to serve people less privileged than themselves.

“The items are given with love which comes from Jesus. These people have hearts and souls,” said Susan Kidgell from the church.

MUSGRAVE Centre, Davenport Square and Springfield Value Centre, along with other centres owned by SA Corporate Real Estate Limited, got actively involved in a group community initiative by running a campaign across all centres for Mandela Day 2016.

The shopping centres ran a collection during the month of July and on Mandela Day the management and marketing teams of the centres visited the school to handover donations valued at over R 67 000.

The centres treated the learners of the school to entertainment on the day, featuring Lasandra Majola, a local singing star on the rise, popular Durban dance crew “The Survivors”, talented beat boxer Mikey Mathaba as well as balloon artists and face painters.

Musgrave Centre’s Pick ‘n Pay joined the celebration and treated 220 Grade R and Grade 1 pupils with lunch packs valued at R7 000. This paired with the donations from the eight shopping centres involved, totalled R74 000.

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