The Uffelter Church will be owned by a new foundation, which means the church will be preserved. For the third time in its 115-year history, residents of Uffelte are securing the future of the building.
It took less than a day to get a six-member board together, says Bernard Breman, chairman of the Uffelter Church Preservation Foundation, which will soon be the new owner of the municipal monument. According to Breman, it shows how important villagers find the Uffelter Church. “It is the appearance of the village. People think that a church building belongs in a Drenthe village. The building also has emotional value. People were married or baptized there, or had a family member’s funeral there.”
The foundation takes over the church on Schoolstraat for a symbolic amount from the Protestant Municipality of Havelte and surrounding areas. “You know how it goes with churches everywhere. The number of churchgoers is decreasing, the costs are rising considerably. Then the future of the church is discussed.” Together with the village community, we worked for 1.5 years on plans and setting up the foundation with the aim of preserving the church as a meeting place and preventing it from ending up as a home.
The church is now used ten times a year for church services. It is also used for funerals, weddings and cultural activities. “It will remain that way, but in principle more will happen than now. We can organize more cultural and social things there. Exhibitions, for example, or a small concert,” says Breman. “But we also have a village hall and catering facilities, so we shouldn’t get in the way of those.”
The Uffelter Church dates from the beginning of the twentieth century. During the war it was damaged in a bombing raid, but the building was patched up and remained in use. When the end of the building threatened in 1983 because renovation would become too expensive, villagers took action again. The church remained afloat both financially and by helping with its maintenance.
Partly due to this renovation, the status of the building is still ‘very good’, according to Breman. However, the first task for the foundation is to recruit donors to be able to pay for new maintenance in the future. “I think that will be fine. In the village you can already hear that the church is being praised, that people are saying: ‘come and visit’. Those are good sounds.”