Rita’s West Frisian stall now also a ‘gift cabinet’: “With fresh fruit!”

A fruit and vegetable shop at home, in the garage to be precise. With the farm shop’s more than 30 years of existence, Peter and Rita know no better than to have fellow villagers visit them for stewed pears or cauliflower. Although their fruit farm closed in 2016, they still sell local products from the shop.

“With our large customer base and long opening hours, we have the idea to want and be able to do even more for others,” says Rita. Since the corona outbreak in 2020, Feld Fruit has been part of the network of West Frisian sales stalls. They bought a cupboard in which they sold jam, but it was now empty.

“So we thought, we can use that one.” Because in this difficult time they want to mean something to the fellow villagers. Rita: “I don’t want to say that we have it super wide ourselves, but at least we can pay for everything. You read, hear and see the harrowing cases. From our own villagers, but there are also people from Ukraine here, people who are much less to spend.”

She notices that it is alive in Benningbroek, because she also installed a second cupboard this weekend. “In a few days the first cupboard was already quite full.” That said, there is a lady at the door with a large crate of stuff. “This is so cool. A crate full of things that she wanted to donate, because she thinks it’s a great initiative and had a difficult period herself. She recently moved here.”

Feld likes to be able to do something for someone else. In her working life she has always been closely involved with people. “First as a funeral director. After I stopped, I really started to miss contact with people. That’s why I recently started working in healthcare.”

They will start giving away on December 1. “They can pick up two articles a week for free. This is all based on trust and is for people from Benningbroek and Sijbekarspel. Donations are of course very welcome, because it is nice if the cupboard remains full and there is enough choice.”

And in addition to the shelf-stable products, vitamins are also considered. “We will also provide fresh fruit, pears or apples.”