Photo: Øystein Otterdal / NRK
King Haakon collected on Kvitsøy: "I could hardly believe it"
King Haakon went door to door with a collection box on Kvitsøy on Sunday, one of his first official engagements as king. The island community off Stavanger is Norway’s smallest municipality by area, and it is 25 years since the last royal visit. This year’s fundraiser is for the Norwegian Refugee Council.
King Haakon went door to door with a collection box on Kvitsøy on Sunday. It is one of his first official engagements as king, and he is chief patron of the national television fundraiser.
When the ferry came in, several of the island's residents were waiting to greet him. The sun was out.
The ten-year-old who had to think about it
The King did not go alone. Lasse Lange, in year five, was asked to walk with him, and took his time before answering.
"I said I had to think about it a bit, so it took about half a day. But then I said yes," he told NRK.
That the King would come to his island at all was hard to believe. "I don't exactly think this is the biggest place, so I thought it was quite fun. I could hardly believe it was true," Lasse said.
25 years since the last royal visit
Kvitsøy is Norway's smallest municipality by area. The island community lies off Stavanger and had 579 inhabitants at the turn of the year, according to Statistics Norway.
Mayor Kjell André Nordbø told Stavanger Aftenblad that it means a great deal that the King chose this of all places for his first visit to Rogaland.
"He was never here as Crown Prince, and it is 25 years since our last royal visit, by King Harald and Queen Sonja," Nordbø said.
Royal visits to a municipality are normally planned months in advance. Kvitsøy found out far later: that the King would be collecting became known on Wednesday, and only on Sunday morning was it revealed where.
The money goes to the Refugee Council
This year's fundraiser is for the Norwegian Refugee Council. The money is to give more than 400,000 displaced people a safe place to live, in Syria, Gaza, Afghanistan, Chad, Sudan and Congo.
Nina Elisabeth Larsen, who heads the fundraiser, told NTB that this year's appeal matters more than ever.
"Never before have so many people been displaced, and never before have there been such large cuts in aid," she said.
Last year the fundraiser collected 275 million kroner. 70 million of that came in during the two hours the collectors went from door to door. This year 60,000 collectors were needed across the country.