Pieter Vercoulen

“I grew up in a horticultural family and also had a horticultural business myself for many years. At a certain point, I had the opportunity to sell that business. With the money from the sale, I bought a piece of land in Hout-Blerick. The municipality required us to build big, so we built a house and a guesthouse. The guesthouse is now B&B De Voort, which I run together with my partner.

I was fortunate to be able to sell the company well, but that doesn't mean that everything in life has come easily to me. My father passed away at a young age, and that made a big impression. At such moments, you realize how valuable but also how fragile life is. Another impactful event was my coming out. Together with my ex-wife and children, I lived the traditional family life until I fell in love with my current partner. That was a profound period, from which we, as a family, emerged in a loving and positive way.

We still do everything together, now with my partner and my ex-wife's new husband included. We celebrate all holidays and birthdays together. To the best of my knowledge, my partner and I were the first gay couple to get married in Hout-Blerick. We transformed a shed into a ballroom and threw a huge party. That was seventeen years ago.

My partner and I travel a lot and we love to enjoy good food and drinks. Together, we attend various pride festivals and parades. My partner and another man form a drag duo, and together they turn every occasion into a celebration. Wherever and whenever possible, we celebrate being who you are. That gives me an ultimate feeling of freedom!

I have always worked hard and I still do. In the B&B, I like to make our guests feel at home, but I also do a lot of volunteer work in and around Hout-Blerick. In recent years, I have been active in the village council of Hout-Blerick and in Venlo politics. Currently, I am still involved in the village consultation, where we organize projects together with residents of Hout-Blerick and Blerick. I am also a board member of Zalzershaof, the multifunctional activity center of Hout-Blerick.

"Being able to mean something to someone else makes me happy. Of course, this can happen in the B&B, but also in my work for the community. A recent project I worked on was the commemoration of the plane that crashed here in Hout-Blerick in 1943. In that plane were 5 liberators who all died in the accident. The idea for the commemoration started small in conversation with someone from the village, but quickly grew into a large project. We organized a commemoration in 2024 at the site where the plane crashed. During an impressive ceremony, relatives of the fallen liberators unveiled a memorial plaque. The plaque is a lasting reminder for Hout-Blerick of the impact of war but especially of the importance of freedom. It makes me proud that we, as a community, can achieve such things, simply by working together.”