An empty wall, except for the occasional message graffiti tag that has drawn attention away from the desperate need for a paint job.

Mandela Day and the creation of opportunities under the 67 minutes banner for the general public to get involved in goodness.

A creative sister-in-law with a vision, a plan and template presenting the basic idea of blocked design she was going for.

A raggedy bunch of volunteers from churches, Improv groups, Facebook friends, children and even strangers and neighbours who happened to walk past and see what was happening and decided to get involved.

This is how a group of us chose to spend out Mandela Day. A little overspent on the 67 minutes [which means we get to take it easier next year?] as most of us were there for the entire morning but jumping in on the opportunity to be a part of painting the outside wall of the uThando leNkosi Place of Safety for children that tbV and i have been involved with since it began many years ago.

In some ways i’m not the biggest fan of the idea of Mandela Day which i wrote a bit about on a 1Africa post over here, with my hesitation being more on the side of needing a day as a reason for us to do good as opposed to just being more doing-good-naturally people. But at the same time, sometimes it can be fun to have ‘an excuse’ to get a bunch of mates together to do a project in the community that is going to help out such a good cause.

It was personally so meaningful for me that some of the members of my Improv team, Improguise, showed up [with family in tow] with carloads of resources and much enthusiasm to get the crowd going and create some of the most stunning designs and we are looking forward to Monday’s Improv show [which you should totally come and watch] as we will be donating the proceeds to uThando leNkosi as well. So we’re really hoping that will be a sold out show so that we can continue the good we were able to get involved in on Saturday.

All in all it was just a fun and vibey day and while there were definitely differing levels of skill and expertise i was pretty happy with my punching-above-the-belt-creations that i managed to produce:

First block pic taken while i was still busy on it: work in progress and second of course had to have my tag snuck in

As long as i didn’t take them in at the same moment as being reminded of the real pros at work:

And of course a behind-the-scenes typical pose for my dad who grabbed a job no-one else wanted to do and quietly went about it:

Excellent day. So easy really. Big thanks to everyone who came out to help and especially those who just saw what was happening and got involved [slightly less thanks to the one lady who grabbed some of our paint when no-one was looking and walked down the road and around the corner and painted ’67 minutes of service for Madeba Day’ [yes, spelling] on someone else’s outside wall]

Did you get up to anything for Mandela Day? i would love to hear the stories and i would love to see you and a bunch of friends or family coming and supporting us on Monday night so that we can sell out our Improv show and give another gift to this house that is doing some great stuff.