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Three fire trucks pulled up to the Hennepin Healthcare burn center Friday – not with hoses and ladders, but with bags and bags of Christmas presents for patients.
Dozens of Minneapolis firefighters and volunteers swept in from the cold and through the halls, arms full of wrapped presents.
Patient Paige Bentler donned a special T-shirt to welcome the volunteers, with the words "happy holidays" across the front. In her hospital chair under a string of red tinsel, she snipped tags off her new gifts – winter gloves, a warm hat, a fleece zip and a giant water tumbler.
“Christmas is kind of a stressor right now… so it's really nice to get stuff,” Bentler said.
The gift drive is an annual tradition, running for 15 years. Nurses collect wish lists from patients, and volunteers with the local organization Firefighters for Healing go shopping, wrap gifts and haul them to the hospital.
Bentler has been here more than a month, after getting injured in a fire. She said she's been relying on help from friends and family since losing most of her possessions.
“Simple stuff that you don't think about, like makeup or hair stuff, just simple things you use every day – you don't have them,” Bentler said.
Firefighters for Healing founder Jake LaFerriere knows that feeling well. He was a patient here 15 years ago, after sustaining burns on the job as a Minneapolis firefighter. He'd seen a lot of fires, but didn't realize until then how long and intensive burn recovery can be.
“I was lonely, I was lost, I didn't have answers, and I felt angst and just all the sad grief,” LaFerriere said.
It's why he started the annual gift drive. He hopes he gives the patients something special – not just gifts, but the company of someone who's been through this, too.
“You get to start to talk to people where they're at,” LaFerriere said. “It really is nothing about the gifts. It's just to love people where they're at.”
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