67 ways to help this Mandela Day: Become a virtual volunteer for Heartlands Baby Sanctuary

Heartlands Baby Sanctuary in Cape Town lost well over R120 000 in the early part of the national lockdown due to closing all four of its sustainability projects, and only managed to re-open the Chic Boutique and Book Shop recently, leaving the Coffee Shop and the hiring out of their training rooms still closed. This means the sanctuary will continue to lose revenue for the foreseeable future.

In addition, due to the fact that so many businesses are now in dire straits, the need for Heartlands to create a consistent form of income through small donations from the community has become essential.

"With your help, if we can reach critical mass, it will help us continue with the high quality of work that we do for our abandoned, abused, neglected, orphaned and sick babies and children, aged between 0-6 years," the sanctuary says.

"Also considering that for Mandela Month we cannot host :physical" volunteers, we are asking people to become "virtual" volunteers by committing to a R100 per month debit order in order to keep the Madiba legacy alive and thus to keep paying it forward."

The "volunteer" idea is that each person challenges three or more friends and colleagues to do the same, so essentially each person is becoming (a) a marketer for Heartlands (b) a fundraiser and (c) a donor on an ongoing basis.