Mandela Day: Giving hearts giving books
Mandela's birthday is celebrated by contributing to a school's literacy programme.

Volunteering your time on Mandela Day doesn’t just comprise giveaways to the needy or food donations.
On the late morning of 18 July EduCare’s Beverley Pretorius and Daleen Havenga took a different approach by focusing their efforts on providing new books and doing a cleanup of the library and media centre at Florida Park High School.
“We believe that literacy is something South Africa is greatly lacking, and we always work to enhance our country’s literacy levels – especially on Mandela Day,” Havenga told the Record.
Luckily the EduCare personnel had some help with the library cleanup as KPMG (an audit and tax advisory company) sent four volunteers to their aid.
Volunteers Michael Merckel, Ryan Blumenow, Stefan Strydom and Teressa Govender were more than happy to sort through old books and help remove some of them from the library systems.
“We assess each school’s literacy level and stock their library accordingly.
“We have been fortunate that most of the books we take off one library system end up being registered on another school’s system.
“Those books that we cannot redistribute are recycled, and with the funds generated EduCare sponsors other library upgrades and services,” an excited Havenga shared.
The volunteers enthusiastically sorted the books and were reminded of their favourites in high school as the afternoon was spent helping others.