A letter from the ASK Foundation on Mandela Day
Continuing the legacy of kindness – Mandela Day 2025
Today, at the Sandton Convention Centre with over 100 volunteers from our client Southern Sun, surrounded by the rhythm of hands packing meals with Rise Against Hunger, we feel the full weight and warmth of what it means to give. But more than that, we feel the energy of something much older—a legacy of kindness that began long before the world knew 18 July as Mandela Day.
This is the fourteenth year that our trustees, all members of the Tothill family, have marked this very day with service. Fourteen years of choosing to show up for others, to get involved, to do the work. And while we’ve partnered with incredible people and organisations along the way, the heart of it has never changed.
Our “why” is personal. Our name says it all: ASK—Acts of Spontaneous Kindness. A Group built not just on a cause, but on an action. All inspired by Madiba and an incredible woman: Vivienne Tothill—the true origin of our kindness mission. She was our mother, our gran—and the very definition of kindness in action. For decades, she dedicated her life to animals through the South African National Equestrian Federation, the Animal Anti-Cruelty League, the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, and the SPCA, and brought joy to communities through the Nutriphase Animal Carnival. Our ASK Trustees—Candy, Lucy, Rob and Jess—worked at the Carnival alongside her for many years. From setting up and organising the event to caring for animals, it wasn’t just volunteer work; it was love in motion. Our final Carnival was in 2012, the year Vivienne passed away. But her essence—her belief that even the smallest act of kindness matters—lives on in every corner of our lives and work.
That’s why we continue to honour both her memory and Madiba’s call to action each year. Because Nelson Mandela didn’t just ask us to remember his legacy—he asked us to live it. To understand that kindness isn’t a gesture, it’s a force. And that changing the world begins with reaching out your hand, not looking away.
Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of doing just that. Annually on 18 July we have given our time and our heart. A few mentions of our legacy of kindness:
- In 2013, Lucy alongside Miss Earth SA planted 95 trees in Orange Farm, changing lives for generations to come. Jess planted trees whilst checking up on a community vegetable garden her and her fellow Generation Earth team had planted. Candyjoined Donald Qubeka “the Madiba of Gugulethu” at Liziwe’s Guesthouse, as part of a powerful programme driven by Candy called the Book a Guesthouse program which aimed at mentoring and uplifting guesthouse owners across South Africa.
- In 2016, our trustees planted vegetable gardens at Lulama Primary School in Soweto—literally growing nourishment, sustainability, and hope in honour of Mandela.
- In 2019, our hearts led us toFORA Animal Shelter, where our trustees offered love, time, and resources to those who cannot speak for themselves.
- In 2022, alongside her mentor, the late Darren Scott, Jess spent the day and week leading up to Mandela day aiding Darren in his One Wingz of Change Mandela House initiative. Building/renovating a kids shelter.
- In 2023 Jess and Kabelo packed food jars for Jars of Hope, packing as many as possible for the day.
- In 2024, Jess and Rob, supported by his business, Brave Media, did a Brave Hearts collection drive for the Haven Night Shelter in Cape Town.
- And today, in 2025, we are packing meals with Southern Sun and Rise Against Hunger—turning our time into action, and our love into food.
Through it all, the legacy of kindness continues to expand—not just through ourselves at the ASK foundation, but through our trustees and their family. In 2018, Kabelo and Masego were officially adopted by Candy, though they have been part of our hearts and home from the very beginning. Both have been unwavering contributors to ASK’s Acts of Spontaneous Kindness over the years, giving their time, their energy, and their love to initiatives and the greater good. They, too, carry forward this spirit of giving, and remind us that kindness is generational.
At ASK Consultancy, we’ve made it our mission to ensure that doing good is never separate from how we do business. A percentage of all ASK’s earnings goes directly into the Foundation’s work—funding grassroots impact, supporting our community programmes, and ensuring that our contribution to the world is both practical and purposeful.
So yes, today is Mandela Day. A day to honour a man who taught us that freedom must be shared, that justice must be lived, and that kindness—when multiplied—does transform the world.
But for us, it’s also a day to remember our legacy of kindness. To celebrate our roots. To honour the idea that small, spontaneous acts of love can ripple across time and change lives.
We are proud to continue this work as a foundation, as a family, as a business, and as individuals.
Because kindness was planted in us.
Because it lives in everything we do.
And because we believe, with all our hearts, that the world is changed by the hands that reach out.
With Kindness,
The ASK Foundation
Words by Jessica Gourlay for the Just ASK Blog
