People around South Africa plan to spend on Saturday sprucing up neglected schools, distributing food parcels and blankets, and even reading newspapers to the elderly in line with the call for 67 minutes of community service to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday.
"I'm going to spend my 67 minutes reading newspapers to the gogos who live near me," said a policeman on duty outside Mandela's home in Houghton. Grade R pupils at Johannesburg's St Katherine's School drew giant birthday cards for the former president and would each bring R6.70 to school on Monday to be donated to a project a sister school is saving for.
Deputy Public Works Minister Ipeleng Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu will help restore a damaged security fence at the Prinshof School for the Visually Impaired, as part of the partially-sighted minister's ongoing commitment to the school.
Ethekwini mayor Obed Mlaba would be at the forefront of a "Siyabonga Madiba" march through Durban, while in Johannesburg, celebrations will include a party in Newtown, which will be addressed by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, and a children's party at Sandton's Nelson Mandela Square.
In the US, singers Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin and France's First Lady Carla Bruno-Sarkozy will be among those singing at a concert in his honour at City Music Hall in New York's Madison Square Garden.
President Jacob Zuma will spend time with elderly people in Ekurhuleni's Ivory Park, to honour the man he called the country's greatest compatriot.
Many government officials would be donning overalls to help repair roads, distribute blankets, unblock water pipes or spend time bathing and feeding orphans, while ordinary people were hatching plans on Friday for what they could do.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation website contains more examples of activities planned, which includes a suggestion to plant a home vegetable garden and then donate the crop to a soup kitchen.
The ANC Youth League was among those wishing Mandela happy birthday, saying that as a former leaguer, Mandela had left an indelible print on the organisation.
The Fifa World Cup Local Organising Committee said the 4000 volunteers who helped in the recent Confederations Cup proved that the spirit of volunteerism was strong in South Africa. It reminded the public that they would open applications for 15 000 volunteers for next year's games on Monday, in their birthday wish to Mandela. - Sapa