a day ago
J-Bay hosts community lunch on Mandela Day to spark year of hope
While the world's top surfers took on Supertubes in the J-Bay Open, something equally powerful was stirring on land this Mandela Day: a mass gathering around shared tables, cooked with love and served with dignity.
More than 1,500 residents of Jeffreys Bay and Pellsrus came together at Pellsrus Primary School for the first J-Bay Community Lunch, where a hot meal carried the weight of a much bigger dream: to feed 200 people every week for a year.
Organised during the WSL J-Bay Open by The House of Mandela, the Faulkner Family Trust and a growing coalition of local churches, artists, surf leaders and residents, the lunch was a call to action and a grassroots tribute to Madiba's spirit of ubuntu: 'I am because we are.'
Rooted in the philosophy of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu — a person is a person through other people — the gathering emphasised that true strength lies in community.
'Food grown, cooked and shared by communities builds lasting bonds more than anything else,' said Kweku Mandela-Amuah, event director and grandson of Nelson Mandela.
