Not everyone has a defining moment where they can pinpoint when their life changed, but Jeff Loeks can tell you that his was six years ago, when he had a brain hemorrhage. “I didn’t know what it was,” he recalls. “A responsible person would have just gone in” to get any symptoms checked out, he says, but Loeks felt well enough. Eventually, the symptoms got bad enough that he went in for a CAT scan. His providers called to let him know about the hemorrhage. Thankfully, Loeks didn’t require surgery, but he did need to make some changes.
It was in the waiting room that he made himself a promise. “If I’m lucky enough to get out of this situation, and I almost accepted that I wasn’t going to, but if I do … I’m going to start to make a difference.” Today, though he still has to get a CAT scan once a year, he’s feeling lucky to be alive. “I feel as though I’m on bonus time,” Loeks says. Which is why, after the brain hemorrhage, he quit his office job—which he enjoyed but didn’t feel made a difference—became a White Bear Lake firefighter and got a job at Regions Hospital.
But after a while, he still felt like he needed to do more. Three years ago, he and a few other firefighters all had the feeling that they were just going through the motions, and they came up with the idea for WBL Firefighter Special Teams, which raises money for local causes. The name comes from the “teams” of people the group supports: a team of nurses, a team of firefighters or a family team. One of their annual projects includes a calendar filled with photos of these team members.On sale at the end of the year, the calendar “is tastefully done,” Loeks says.
Aside from the calendar and their participation in the annual White Bear Lake Polar Plunge to benefit Special Olympics, the WBL Special Teams try to do one big charity event every fall. Two years ago, Loeks realized the WBL firefighters needed an ATV after a truck fell through the ice, and they had to wait for Ramsey County to bring their ATV to help. “We’re in White Bear Lake, we have all these lakes, we should have an ATV,” Loeks says. After getting turned down for grants, he and two other firefighters decided to walk from Duluth to White Bear Lake with their firefighting tanks to raise money for the ATV. It took four days and caused too many blisters to count, but they raised the money. “We went through the smallest towns and met incredible people,” he says. [The walk] “was physically the toughest thing I’ve ever done.”
While that gained quite a bit of attention, specifically from other firefighting teams, the 2014 event made the news and involved far less walking for Loeks. His initial plan was to have a food drive for the White Bear Area Emergency Food Shelf, but after visiting the shelf, was told that the real need was for toiletry items.
So he stood on the corner in downtown White Bear Lake and waited for the U-Haul to be filled. “I was thinking I was going to be there for three to five days,” Loeks says. “I was only there for 40 hours.” He estimates more than 1,000 people showed up to donate, and he actually had to tell people to stop coming once the truck was full.
“We have one whole room that’s up to the ceiling with toilet paper right now,” says White Bear Area Emergency Food Shelf executive director Julie Jergens.
With all this forward momentum, Loeks’ goal now is to have five events every year. “I have big ideas for Christmas,” he says.
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To donate or find out how to get involved, visit the Special Teams Facebook page at facebook.com/firefighterspecialteams.
