Various philanthropic events were held in honour of late president Nelson Mandela’s birthday last Tuesday, July 18.
The Rotary Club of Sea Point spent 67 minutes of their Mandela Day at Ellerton Primary School, planting 67 different plants and teaching the children about South Africa’s first black president as well as how to cultivate your own veggies.
“We planted strawberries which is a first as well as broccoli, peas and cauliflower and a few other veggies and we are hopeful they will grow,” said Robyn Zinman-Yudelman, a member of the rotary club.
The Rotary Club and dental company Opti Smile contributed items to the school, and the garden was named after Nelson Mandela.
“We had volunteers from the Rotary club as well as Opti Smile and we donated the plants and gifts to the kids and the signage as well. The kids enjoyed it as they learnt to grow food, how to plant seedlings, how to weed, how to get rid of bugs without using poison and how to harvest,” she said.
SA Harvest honoured 20 women and two gentlemen who volunteer as community workers in their various townships, on Mandela Day. They travelled from Kuils River, Lavender Hill and Philippi to meet at Makers’ Landing at the V&A Waterfront for a cooking class and Madiba celebration.
“We partnered with SA grow and the ladies that are volunteers in their communities and we have given them gifts and a meal kit and it’s just our way of saying thanks to them and celebrating Mandela day,” said Kelly Payne, marketing manager at U-Cook.
Delft resident Eldene Nel came to give her friend Noelene Talmarkes, assistance at the cook off. Ms Talmarkes represented the Khathalelana NPO and received the best dressed prize for her traditional outfit.
“We have a skills room in Delft where we teach kids the basics of working on computers but Noelene works with the feeding scheme. This was a lovely project to be part of and to celebrate Mandela Day,” said Ms Nel.
“I’m surprised that I won the best dressed prize as all the ladies look lovely and colourful, and it was nice to be here for Mandela day. With our NPO we feed about 120 meals per day from Monday to Friday so this was a nice break for us,” said Ms Talmarkes.
The Rawson property group held a beach clean-up at Camps Bay with the non-profit charity Save a Fishie as well as relatives and friends, collecting 28kg of rubbish.
Rawson franchisee Giuliano Giacovazzi said he was happy for the opportunity to work with the community.
“It was such a pleasure for us to have worked again with Save a Fishie on this beach clean-up. We had our best turn out yet with almost 67 volunteers for every minute of Mandela Day. We want to thank the SA Children’s Home and all of our Rawson agents family and friends for having made it such a great success,” said Mr Giacovazzi.
Joshua Bavarstock, a director with Save a Fishie, says they picked up more trash than expected on the Camps Bay beach.
“There were plenty of cans and lots of bottles and items we did not expect to see here. There was cardboard boxes amongst the rocks and bushes. We do this often and we also encourage people to use the bins which are on the beach,” said Mr Bavarstock.
