Saved the Local Grocery
“They came with family and a go- ahead spirit. Look to Venabygda,” wrote the local paper that covers Gudbrandsdal. “ In this little village a Belgian woman has made a big impact.”
When you’ve driven up steep hills and slowly approach Venabygda along public highway 220, you meet a sign saying in a mix of Dutch and Norwegian that residents there can speak Dutch. In Venabygda – or to be accurate, at the local store - there too, people speak Dutch. But it’s not only there. For a while seven or eight Dutch families lived in the area so that in day –to- day talk it’s been called “New Holland.”
Also down in Vålebrua, the village center of Ringebu people from the Netherlands have made a mark. Among other jobs they work as opticians and manage the local cafeteria. In La Pierre, the shoe store owned by Yvette and Ed Steur, the shoes sold include those they have designed themselves. Customers come from Lillehammer and Oslo!
It is out in the country that Belgian Agnes Verhelst makes a difference - each day! She keeps the local grocery open and with that, makes sure the local folks continue to have a place to meet each other.
As with country stores in many other rural areas, the Venabygd Grocery had been threatened with closure.
Agnes and her husband ran a grocery store in a rural town 12 miles from Antwerp. They were successful but had little possibility to expand the store. Therefore they wanted to do something else. They read about Norway in a newspaper and coincidentally heard of a meeting about Norway sponsored by the recruiting firm Placement. They closed their store, went to the meeting, and heard about a shop in Venabygd that was for rent. They had never been to Norway but were curious and decided to send in a resumé. When they received an offer to manage the store, they took a trip here and meet the rural folks who were eager to find someone to take over the place.
“No one in Belgium believed us when we told them we were moving to Norway to manage a store. But half a year later we were here,” tells Agnes. They were in Norway the first time at the end of January and came back around May 17th. On this national holiday (Norway’s Constitution Day) there was a celebration at the Venaheim community house, and the Belgian family was called up on the stage to be presented. Back in Belgium they decided to sell their shop. On July 27th mother Agnes, father Dirk, and two sons moved to Venabygda. They settled in to the second floor above the store and two weeks later took over managing it.
“It was hard at the beginning. When I think back to that time, I can’t understand how we managed it. The third week I worked alone in the store unable to speak Norwegian,” tells Agnes. Now this 45 year old welcomes her customers in the local dialect and is rarely stopped by the Norwegian. Conversation takes place about big and small events in the rural area.
“It is wonderful to have a store here. It makes things so easy. Otherwise we would have to travel down to Ringebu to buy groceries, “ says Gunn Næss, who shops before she goes to her job. Helen Træet buys in bulk for the Venabygd Montessori Day Care and Kindergarten. “It’s great to have a store here. And such cheerful folks behind the counter!”
Agnes Verhelst is reasonably certain that the Venabygd Grocery wouldn’t exist any longer if she had not taken over running it. For Norwegians it’s too much work for too little income to manage a corner store, she believes. Not too many good examples exist of small rural communities that manage to keep such a store open. Therefore, “Look to Venabygda,” as the news story said. The occasion of that article was a visit to the area by a European Union delegation with researchers and rural developers from Northern Europe. When the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Affairs was to show off their investment in rural business through the Mercury Program, they chose one of the smallest stores: Venabygd Grocery.
Agnes thought it was fun to be in the spotlight in this way.
”I can’t compete in price and have to have something extra to offer the rural folks, the people with cabins nearby, the tourists,” she says. Agnes emphasizes offering local produce: cheese, eggs, beer, honey; Belgian specialties such as chocolate can also be found on her shelves.
In the coffee corner folks can sit down and chat with one another. The store is one of the things that “glues” the area together, along with the school, church, and community house. But it’s more and more difficult to run such a little store. The work hours are long and you’ll never get rich. Beautiful nature, the quietude and a life style that makes family members come closer to one another counts on the plus side for the Belgians in Venabygd.
”We feel that we’re important for the area. If that feeling disappears, that will be the end of running the store,”says Agnes. As she sees it now, the future will be in Norway – with frequent visits in Belgium.
See the video Saved the Local Grocery (in Norwegian)