A fierce fire destroyed Buurtcentrum Maarswold in Stadskanaal in the night from Saturday to Sunday. The adjacent 24-hour childcare, located in the same building, is closed.
,,This is a sad story”, Mark Heeren of Buurtcentrum Maarswold summarizes. The center has been located in the old school on Utrechtselaan for a few years now. Since last year, the club has neighbors in the form of a 24-hour childcare. Gertjan Kamst, owner of the 24-hour childcare, calls it intense.
The burning smell is still in the air on Sunday morning. Building windows are broken and walls are blackened. Everything is broken in the neighborhood center. The chairs, refrigerators, tables, cupboards: nothing is left of them. The childcare seems to have come off better, but it also has to close.
Exit through a bench
There is smoke and water damage at the childcare, says Kamst. Were children sleeping? ,,Yes, there were four children between the ages of 5 and 8, and two supervisors.” Because the fire was at the front door and the square is closed off with a fence, they wanted to go out through a window on the other side. Because a room was full of smoke, that was not possible. “My colleagues did a great job. They put a bench against the fence, so that everyone could climb over it.” On the other side, the police caught them, no one was injured.
Colleagues of the sleeping watch on duty also got out of bed in a hurry to help where possible. ,,It was nice to see that everyone started to move so spontaneously”, says Kamst. One of the sleeping guards who lives in Veendam could therefore be brought home. And the kids? “In consultation with the parents who were at work, I put them on the couch at home in front of the TV,” says Kamst.
‘We wanted to be indispensable’
The building was actually supposed to be demolished in 2024, but Mark Heeren of the community center and the other volunteers recently received permission from the owner, the municipality of Stadskanaal, to stay longer in the building: “Two or three years should be possible.”
That has now come to an abrupt end. All that volunteer work, it went well and then this. The well-attended coffee mornings, the clubs and support groups for which it is home, such as Nardus Digitali (a support group for everyone who is affected by cancer themselves or in their immediate vicinity) can no longer go there. Heeren: ,,We wanted to be indispensable for the district.”
The fact that the center was used so gratefully strengthens Heeren in the idea that this cannot be the end. “If the municipality helps us get a new location, we will continue.”
Kamst: “Actually, I think it is only logical that the municipality is now helping us to find a new place. One thing is wrong: after this week it’s summer vacation.”