Thorsten Lender died in November – his sausage stand was a fixed point of contact for many market visitors in Emmendingen and Waldkirch. Thanks to donations, his wife Regina can continue.
His death shocked many people: Thorsten Lender, who had been present at the weekly markets in Emmendingen and Waldkirch for years with his sausage stand, died on November 16th. A fundraiser for his widow Regina raised around 8,000 euros. “I’m very grateful that people thought of me,” she says. “Thorsten would be super proud.” From next week, the sausage stand should be back on the market square.
A Saturday in Waldkirch, market day. On the cobblestones is a chair, two tea lights, a sign with three red hearts. “It’s a matter of the heart!” It says, and: “Don’t you miss something too?” It is the place where Thorsten Lender parked the sausage stand for years, where Lange Rote sizzled, joked with customers and kept asking them the question of all questions: With or without onions?
At the end of November, Lender, whose father had run a sausage stand since 1974, died of an aneurysm. He left behind his wife Regina, who was always there, but didn’t have a driver’s license and mightn’t drive the trailer. The bills continued anyway. “As we have learned, Regina’s situation is not that easy,” says the sign next to the donation box in Waldkirch. “That’s why we want to support Regina. Every euro can help.”
The fundraiser was initiated by Waldkircherin Monika Scheibel. She got to know the Lenders as a customer: Because she lives near the market square, she kept bringing them coffee. “A friendship developed there,” says Scheibel. It was she who, in addition to the donation box on the marketplace, launched a crowdfunding campaign on the betterplace.me website. Title: “Help Regina!” This is where the majority of the donations came in, at around 7,000 euros, piece by piece – sometimes it was 50 euros, sometimes twenty, sometimes five. The campaign spread quickly on the Internet, and Waldkirch’s Mayor Roman Gtzmann also shared the appeal: the sausage stand, he wrote, was an “institution and a central contact point” on the market square.
Sausage stand should be back on the market from Tuesday
The situation is incredibly difficult for her, says Regina Lender. “I struggled with grief.” The fundraiser was also not really to her liking at first. “I’ve always worked without needing help. But now I’m incredibly happy regarding the help.”
Regina Lender wants to continue: The donations are intended to help her, among other things, to get her driver’s license. Until then, she needs someone to drive the trailer. She has found someone: From Tuesday, February 15, the sausage stand should be on the Emmendinger market square – and on the following Wednesday it will be back in Waldkirch for the first time. “The cities have been very accommodating to me,” says the 52-year-old. “It might also have been that they give the place to someone else.” Many suppliers have also shown themselves to be helpful. “I’m looking forward to it,” says Regina Lender. “I liked working at the sausage stand, with market colleagues and customers right from the start – that’s just my life.”
