Many dozens of people said goodbye to Jannie Orsel from Heiligerlee on Tuesday. The woman who devoted herself with heart and soul to minima in East Groningen for years died last week at the age of 59 from the consequences of COPD.
Orsel was best known for the First Aid foundation, which first had a thrift store in Veendam and later in Heiligerlee: De Snuffelhoek. There are also so-called distribution points for volunteers in Oude Pekela, Stadskanaal, Veendam and Winschoten. People who are in danger of falling between two stools or who cannot or hardly make ends meet are helped from there. Not only with groceries, but also with clothes, toys and even furniture.
guard of honour
A large number of the people who have ever been helped by Orsel (June 18, 1963) and her volunteers, will be at the Oost-Groningen funeral home in Winschoten on Tuesday. They form a guard of honor as the bier passes by in a white mourning carriage, pulled along at a walking pace by four Frisian horses.
“She has helped so many people,” says a woman from Winschoten who brought a white rose with her. ,,Me too, when I was having such a hard time and could barely make ends meet. You could always count on her day and night.
,,That’s how mom was”, says Orsel’s son Harm Kuiper. “She gave away her last groceries if anyone needed it.”
Distribution point
It all started in Beerta. In November 2012, Orsel, who herself also had a violent background of poverty, founded her Uitdeelpunt (and later foundation) First Aid. It is run with volunteers. “Even before that, she helped others through social media,” says Kuiper. “She put people who had things in contact with others who were in need of it.”
Orsel came from Oude Pekela. Although she later lived in Veendam, Beerta and Winschoten, among others, she always felt like a Pekelder with a big heart for others, says her son. ,,She could not stand injustice and poverty. She didn’t have it wide as a child either, far from it. Helping others, helping them on their way again: that was her motivation,” says Kuiper. “That’s how she was raised. You have to take care of each other. If someone else is less fortunate, you help.”
The Brink
When the house in Beerta turns out to be too small for all the stuff, Orsel moves to Veendam. There she opens De Snuffelhoek in an empty shop on De Brink and if that thrift shop also grows there, she will move to even larger accommodation in a former shop in Heiligerlee.
“The proceeds from the thrift store – minus the costs – again benefit minimum incomes,” says Kuiper, who says that his mother was involved with the foundation until the very end. “She had just found a new house, within walking distance of the thrift store. We were busy doing odd jobs last week, painting and laying laminate, when her situation deteriorated. She deteriorated rapidly.”
Orsel, who suffered from COPD, was hospitalized in Scheemda. ,,She lasted another six days”, says Kuiper. “Moeke had a strong will and even slept in her new home. She insisted on spending her last night in her own house.”