If
you are eager to help but you are not sure where to start, here are 67 ideas of
how you can spend your 67 minutes this Mandela Day.
1. Donate
blood, especially if you are group O, as the blood bank is dangerously short of
blood at this time. If you are over 16 years old, and weight more than 50kg, go
to http://www.wpblood.org.za/ to get details of where your closet blood bank
is.
2. Put
money in a tin box on your dining room table or in the kitchen to collect small
change for the local soup kitchen.
3. Support
Sparrow schools. Sparrow is a non-profit outfit that educates children with
learning difficulties to grade 9 and then puts them through a tertiary program
to develop skills so that they are employable, like floor laying and hotel
schooling. They are situated in Johannesburg, but could always use helping
hands, even if you are in Cape Town. http://sparrowschoolsblog.co.za/
4. Fish
out old prams and baby cots and donate them to an infant home in your area.
5. Buy
a bangle and support container libraries. Log into to www.46664.co./bangle to see where these
have been placed so far.
6. Sign
up at an old age home to read the newspaper or play an instrument to the elderly
once a month for the next year.
7. When
shopping buy extra female hygiene products and drop off packs with a
personalised message on each to a women’s shelter for the abused.
8. Sign
up with a Saturday school and commit to a few afternoons a month to improving
marks of underprivileged matrics.
9. Provide
back up support for volunteer workers by serving hot tea of generating food
packs on a monthly basis.
10. The
SPCA welcomes volunteers and is always in need of help with kennel duties and
skills in admin, legal and counselling functions. https://capespca.co.za/
11. Offer
to drive someone who can’t afford it to have an HIV test and provide emotional
support.
12. Sign
up with Generation Earth and help your child start up a “Gen Earth” committee
at their school. They focus on carrying out green projects and educating their
peers on environmental issues. www.generationsearth.co.za
13. Read
out loud Nelson Mandela’s life history on www.nelsonmandela.org.za to inspire
children and everyone around you.
14. Pick
up 67 pieces of litter.
15. Drop
off scrapbooking supplies and scraps of fabrics at a retirement home for use in
creating crafts for end of year markets.
16. If
you are a fish lover, download the Sassi card to check that the fish you order
in a restaurant is not endangered. www.wwsassi.co.za
17. Redeem
points earned on a shopper’s card for gift vouchers for your domestic worker to
take home.
18. Make
a point of meeting all your neighbours and set up a whatsapp group so you can
report suspicious activity directly to each other.
19. Durbanville
Children’s home is a church-based non-governmental welfare organisation. It is
one of the oldest children’s homes in South Africa (133 years to be exact).
They will welcome any donations of non-perishable food, toiletries and cleaning
equipment. http://www.durbanvillekinderhuis.org.za/pages/english/home.php
20. Set up a community garden in your
neighbourhood where residents can share the water and weeding.
21. Ashoka
is a volunteer portal for individuals to sign up with their skills set and wait
for opportunities to give back. www.ashoka.org/volunteer
22. Take
a can of Q20 or a weed-eater to your local park and tidy up or fix rusty joint
of the equipment.
23. Pledge
to unplug your phone charger from now on.
24. Sponsor
a guide dog by paying for the puppy training: www.guidedog.org.za
25. Sign
up as an Organ donor. Your body can save up to seven lives and many more with
tissues like heart valves. www.odf.org.za
26. Living
seed organisation, an organic seed company, is calling for volunteers to help
their charities plant the gardens. They say time and expertise are needed as
many of the beneficiaries are “soil illiterate”. www.livingseeds.co.za
27. Bake
something for the local police station night shift to encourage them in their difficult
work.
28. Donate
platelets at ww.sanbs.co.za
29. Sign
up as a regular donor to the Start’s Seaside fund. The charity gives
underprivileged children the opportunity to have a fun-filled holiday at the
beach. 011 633 2304
30. Drop
off soft toys at the Cape Town central police station. The toys are kept at the
victim empowerment centre to hand out to abandoned and abused children when
they come for counselling.
31. It
is the coldest time of the year, collect blankets and give them to homeless
shelters. Contact the Salvation Army – 021 697 1564
32. Sign
up for the 97.4 and begin collecting sponsorships for a charity of your choice.
33. Take a pack of seeds to a rural school and
help the children plant them.
34. Print a booklet of lessons for your domestic worker’s kids. There
are a number of sites that let you reproduce their worksheets for free.
35. Offer to feed a neighbour’s pet or house-sit while they are away.
36. Log into to www.backabuddy.co.za and sign up to
follow a cause. Better still, begin a new one and get fund-raising.
37. Drop off a bag of pet food or a blanket at your local SPCA.
38. Talk to your suburban shopping centre about recycling and encourage
them to manage their trash.
39. Pledge to have more showers and fewer baths.
40. Qhubeka encourages rural residents to plant food gardens and trees
and in return earn a bicycle, which provides a great amount of freedom for the
children as they use them to travel the long distances. Check out their work on www.qhubeka.org.za
41. Get inspired by going to www.giveback.co.za.
42. Invite a needy family for dinner or cook a meal for them.
43. Read for Tape Aids for The Blind – if your voice passes the
audition, you get to record a book. www.tapeaids.com
44. Go to your local library and ask them how you can help to keep them
going – providing cake when people from the local old age home visit or reading
to kids.
45. Plant a tree at home and give a twin plant to someone in an informal
settlement. Compare their growth over the years.
46. Clean out your shelves and get a bag of books ready to deliver to a
school that needs extra reading books.
47. Pledge to use your next “party” for fund-raising by creating a
‘cause’ onwww.backabuddy.co.za. That way, you’ll encourage your
friends to think about charitable socialising.
48. Swap your usual take-out paper cups for a ceramic one to ease the
impact on landfills.
49. Buy balls of wool for an old age home or donate a chess set that you
don’t use.
50. Switch the TV off in the evening and talk to your children about
starting a family charity – something you can all fund-raise toward that is
important to all of you. If you register it at www.startsomethingday.co.za, you
could win money for the cause.
51. Take a new soccer ball to a local school
for the kids.
52. Go to the local hospital and see if you can get on a standby list to
help out in the trauma waiting area when they are under pressure.
53. Donate old magazines to a home or a needy nursery school.
54. “Like” the homecoming revolution and show overseas friends that SA
is still the best: www.homecomingrevolution.co.za
55. Hold a garage/jumble sale for charity.
56. Get a My School card and register a rural school as the beneficiary:www.myschool.co.za
or call 0860 100 445.
57. Instead of spending on a meal at a restaurant, put together a food
parcel for someone at work who has fallen on hard times.
58. Start buying food in minimal packaging to save on throw-away items.
59. Do some research into the products you usually buy – find
alternatives that are better for our planet.
60. Register with greater good: www.myggsa.co.za and
create a “giver” profile.
61. Offer your services to the Highveld Horse Unit. See them on Facebook
to see how you can help.
62. Commit to sorting your trash at source to make life easier for the
informal recyclers who rummage through the garbage.
63. Sort out your cupboard and give someone
your old clothing to sell to boost their income.
64. The Origins Centre at Wits will be holding an exhibition on Nelson
Mandela and will be collecting for the Star’s Operation Snowball. Drop off
canned food, blankets and clothes. Open from 9am to 5pm.
65. Switch off one geyser for the month, to help ease the pressure on
the country’s electricity supplies.
66. Soccer outreach ambassadors in soccer (AIS-SA) welcome soccer
enthusiasts to help them engage poorer societies throughout SA using the
vehicle of soccer. Contact them on 012 348 0025.
67. Cheese kids, who describe themselves as a “broad-based volunteer
program”, are seeking volunteers on Mandela Day. Log on to their website and
RSVP to their “Nelson Mandela day revolution” or donate by sms: www.cheesekids.org.za
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