At the event “Engaged! – Maintal says thank you”, the city honored some of the many volunteers, some of whom have been selflessly serving the public for decades. One of them is Renate Rölle.
Maintal – The district center in Bischofsheim smells of fresh bread rolls. Somaye Tajik and her sister-in-law Shokfa Tajik are in the kitchen preparing the women’s breakfast: scrambled eggs, salad, fresh fruit, coffee. The table is set. “These are my two most committed helpers at the women’s breakfast and beyond,” says Renate Rölle, introducing the two of them, who are happy about the 79-year-old’s praise. The woman from Maintal has been involved in volunteer work for years. For this she was recently awarded the city’s badge of honor and had a tree planted in the Frauenhain.
Rölle was born in Frankfurt in 1945, where she also grew up. After graduating from secondary school, she trained to become a teleprinter. “My dream job was actually to be a nurse, but at 16 I was too young for nursing school,” reports the 79-year-old. Through a friend, she started playing badminton in 1960 and enjoyed it. “We both met our husbands through sport,” says the woman from Maintal. In 1963 she married her husband Detlef, in 1964 her son Oliver was born, and in 1965 the family moved to Maintal. “Since we didn’t get a place in kindergarten, I stayed at home,” reports Rölle, who later took on office work in various companies.
When her son was old enough to play badminton, but they didn’t want to travel to Frankfurt to do so, she set up a youth badminton section at the Wachenbuchen Free Gymnastics Association in 1974, which she trained herself. “In 1978 we founded our own badminton club,” reports Rölle, who is known for her clear and direct manner. “We started with around 150 members who came here from Frankfurt and the entire surrounding area.”
Sports club, rural women, club ring: Rölle is involved in a variety of ways
For the Maintal native, this means that she offers training twice a week and regularly goes to tournaments and association league games on the weekend. “Today the trainers are employed; back then I did it alone with 30 to 40 children,” says Rölle. In 1990 she left professional life. She still has good contact with her pupils today: “One of them is Wolf Koch, who became a physiotherapist and gave my laudatory speech at the tree planting campaign,” reports Rölle proudly. Since her husband’s death in 2009, she has stopped playing badminton for health reasons.
In addition to sport, she dedicated herself to rural women, where she was active on the board until it was dissolved. In addition, she worked for ten years as an assessor in the club ring. Over the years she has learned to recognize changes and to change things, even if she initially didn’t agree with them: “Some circumstances change. Clubs have to move with the times and certain things cannot continue as before.”
Since 2005 it has been an integral part of the Bischofsheim district center, which has existed since 2001. “In the beginning I only helped here sporadically. But little by little I got into each group. There are so many great offers, it’s just fun. The work here is so enriching that some people can’t imagine it.” The 79-year-old has already been jokingly asked if she wanted to set up her bed in the district center. International women’s breakfast, repair café, German tutoring – Rölle is there. “It was important to me during Corona to keep the district center alive. We were very strict with the requirements. Otherwise a lot of things would have been broken,” says the Maintal native. For them, the exchange with the women, many of whom have a migrant background, is important. “It’s great to see the progress they’re making and what’s being initiated. My wealth is the work here in the district center.”
By Ingrid Zöllner
