Denis Hurley Centre Street Lit Book Drive for Mandela Month
The vision of 18 July being Mandela Day is being spread across a whole month of July at the Denis Hurley Centre, with a month-long call-out to collect 10,052 quality second-hand books for their Street Lit booksellers, one for every day Madiba spent in prison.
The much-loved, feel-good, Durban-based entrepreneurship programme enables a team of homeless / formerly homeless men and women to earn a modest living, have a renewed life-purpose, and to encourage and enable people to read more books.
“With so many vendors selling books – and with new apprentice vendors joining the team – we need to keep them constantly supplied in quality books. So, we are launching a Durban-wide book drive for July: Mandela Month. The challenge is to collect 10,052 books – one for every day he spent in prison! After all, books must have been one of the things that kept Madiba sane for 27 long years,” explains project facilitator Illa Thompson.
“We are delighted that a number of churches across the city have agreed to be drop off points to make it easier for people to donate. The list is on our Facebook page and website and will be updated regularly. So, now is the time to pass on those quality books that you really loved, so someone else can enjoy them too,” she explained.
“Conservatively, if there are 15 vendors selling at any one time – and say they each sell five books a day on average – that means we need to source 75 fresh books a day to keep their stock viable. And that is just our regular and permanent venues – excluding pop-ups and events, where the volumes are much higher. That means we always need a steady supply of loads of really good books!”
The vendors welcome Bibles, self-helps, best sellers, popular and award-winning novels; children’s books, Dictionaries (English and Zulu) and books in Zulu. Quality, current, good condition books only please!
There are places to drop off books. Please mark books clearly for Denis Hurley Centre – and ideally please drop them off in bags or boxes, for easy storage and collection.
The full list of participating churches are:
- Bluff: NGK Durban Oos, Old Mission Rd, Grosvenor (Mon, Tues, Thurs: 9am until noon)
- Bellair: All Saints, 1135 Sarnia Rd (Mon – Fri: 8am until noon)
- Umbilo: St Cyprians, 603 Umbilo Rd (Mon – Fri: 8am until 4pm)
- Westridge: New Noise, 76 Bank Terrace, Manor Gardens (Mon – Fri: 8am until 4pm)
- Westville: Our Lady of Lourdes, 14 Westville Rd (Mon – Thurs: 9am until 4pm; Fri 9am until noon)
- Hillcrest: St Dominics, 1 Mill Rd, Hillcrest (Mon – Fri: 8am until 1pm)
- Central: Glenridge at Durban Station (Mon – Wed: 8am until 4pm)
- Central: Denis Hurley Centre, opp Fish Market (Mon to Sun: 8am until 5pm)
- Berea: Musgrave Methodist, Cnr St Thomas / Musgrave Rd (Mon – Fri: 8.30 until 1pm)
- Morningside: St James: 115 Venice Rd (Tues – Fri 8.30am until noon)
- Dbn N: Dbn North Methodist, 3 Swapo Rd (Mon – Fri 8am until noon)
- Dbn N: Presbyterian, 3 Round the Green, Sunningdale (Mon – Fri: 7am until 1.30pm)
- Virginia: St Margarets, 11 Delaware Ave (Mon – Fri: 7.30am until 11am)
- Umhlanga Rocks: St Michaels, 6 Durban View Rd (Mon – Fri 8am until noon)
- Ballito: All Saints, 61 Townsend Rd (Mon – Fri 8am until 3pm)
The Mandela Day 10,052 books campaign will take place throughout the month of July.
Additional queries – contact Illa on books@denishurleycentre.org.
This is a really labour intensive and logistics-heavy project – so if you are able to help in any way during the month, please let us know too!
You will find the book vendors:
Alvin Dube – La Lucia Mall, by Woolworths; Sbusiso Mnguni – Ballito Life and Style, by the gallery; Donel Tanbeni at the KZNSA Gallery; David Sithole – outside municipal satellite container library alongside Workshop; David Jones – Berea Centre; Bulelo Sigabi – Davenport Square, Eric Badise & Godfrey Ngubo – Durban Botanic Gardens Visitors Centre; Richard Nzima & Khanyisile Cele – Pick n Pay Hyper by the Sea; Vusi Meyiwa – Bluff Towers; Xolani Gamede – Umlazi Mega City; Anele Nyembezi around the taxi ranks; Qhawe Mbatha – Bridge City, Mongezi Mtolo – Cortado coffee shop, Musgrave; China Shabalala around town. Look out for our bright lime green branding!