Pine Tree Junior High student Avery Lilly, who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, signs the Pink Heals fire truck during a parade in his honor Feb. 20, 2024, in his Longview neighborhood. (Les Hassell/Longview News-Journal File Photo)

A pink firetruck races down the street, its lights flashing and its siren blaring. No home is on fire, and no car is wrecked. But someone does need help — and help is on the way.

Since 2011, a pink fire engine named Amy has arrived at the homes of Gregg County residents with cancer and other serious illnesses. People’s names are written all over the truck, and along with the apparatus comes a crew donning pink firefighter bunker gear and, oftentimes, the patient’s family and friends.

Pink Heals of Gregg County’s mission has expanded in the past decade. The local chapter of the national organization’s original purpose was to support women with breast cancer, but now, the organization offers camaraderie and fundraising for women and their families facing myriad traumatic events — from house fires to having a child with a cancer diagnosis. All proceeds raised from a fundraiser benefit the person for whom its designated.

“We want to support the community, supporting women and their families,” said Tammy Denfeld, the chapter’s event planner.

‘Someone in need’

Across the nation, Pink Heals chapters have greeted cancer fighters for years. Denfeld and her husband, Steven, were driving past the Longview Mall one Sunday in 2011 when a fleet of pink fire engines in the parking lot caught his eye. Steven was a Longview firefighter, so naturally, his curiosity demanded that he go check it out.

He met Dave Graybill, who established the Pink Heals nationwide organization and explained how the organization works at a local level. When the organization hosts a fundraiser for someone facing cancer or other major medical dilemmas, all of the funds raised go directly toward paying the person’s bills. None of it is spent on administrative fees at a corporate office somewhere far, far away.

“It made sense to me because their big thing is to support the women in our community because the women take care of us,” Steven Denfeld said. “So, being the men of the community, we should take care of our women.”

The Denfelds organized the Gregg County chapter, and they’ve got the help of volunteers around the county. Many of them are active or retired first responders. When they respond for one of the organization’s home visits, they’re sometimes joined by additional emergency response vehicles, creating a grand affair to show compassion for the patient.

Patients can use a permanent marker to sign their name on the fire engine, which is covered with signatures of all shapes, sizes and swirls. It’s a tradition that began shortly after the national chapter launched.

So, why fire engines and police cars?

“A firetruck is a very known symbol that, when it comes through your neighborhood or through your town or whatever, people see it, and they think it’s an emergency or someone needs help,” said Steven Denfeld, the chapter president. “So the founder of it, Dave, he said, ‘What better way than to take something that was already in service to the community, that no longer can be in service to community because it’s outdated or needs to be replaced, and put it back into the community in a different fashion?’”

And why are they pink? For years, pink has been the nationally recognized color for breast cancer awareness, but the reason why the emergency vehicles the organization uses are pink is because that color also represents women in general, Denfeld said.

The reason first responders flock to the cause aligns with the organization’s overall mission of servanthood. “They know what it’s like to have someone in need,” Denfeld said.

‘Everybody makes connections’

East Texas has higher rates of cancer than other parts of Texas and the U.S. The region is littered with coal mines, oilfield activity and chemical production from Eastman Chemical Co. and other companies with emissions known to cause cancer. The highly processed food people consume is filled with toxins.

That means there’s a number of people in the area who are diagnosed with cancer and need someone to lean on. A cancer diagnosis can take a toll on a person physically, mentally and emotionally, and people face low, dark points along the way, Tammy Denfeld said.

“There’s a point where they get really down,” she said. “They’re sick and they don’t feel good, and they’re taking all this chemo pill or radiation or whatever their treatment is, and then they’re just sick and they’re tired, and it just kind of lifts their spirit for them to see people rallying around them, even if we’re all in masks.”

Sometimes, the crowds of supporters are large and enthusiastic. But some people have no one there with them, Denfeld said.

All people, though, need help in such a time, Denfeld said.

“The ones that just doesn’t have the support system — they only have one or two people there — is just as important … just as much as the little girl that has the entire town show up,” Denfeld said.

Those moments when the entire town does show up, though, are special. She recalled the story of a young girl who needed a heart transplant, and her family got the news during a fundraiser that a heart was available. The girl was rushed to Dallas, where the transplant was performed.

Denfeld remembers how the whole town of Carthage rallied around a young girl with advanced-stage cancer. Pink Heals volunteers threw her a Disney princess party.

Then there’s the story of a mother whose diagnosis was terminal, and she wanted to take one last vacation with her family. The Denfelds contacted a friend who owns a beach house in Orange Beach, Alabama, and coordinated with an Alabama Pink Heals chapter to give the family a one-week stay. It was the family’s last Christmas together, Denfeld said.

“Every single volunteer is going to have their visit that meant something to them,” she said. “Everybody makes connections.”

‘Your presence and your love’

The financial need people have for cancer assistance is high. Because of inflation, people are struggling to pay for basic necessities, much less expensive medical procedures.

“I personally know someone that she’s not taking her chemo maintenance pill because it’s so expensive, and she just can’t afford that kind of cost that all the time,” Denfeld said.

The Pink Heals organization itself also needs money to operate — but not much, Steven Denfeld said, and it doesn’t come from the people whom the charity benefits. The organization primarily raises funds by selling T-shirts, paying for gas for the fire engine, maintenance and other costs. Sometimes, though, people donate new tires and mechanical services to keep it going.

Since the coronavirus pandemic, chapters across the nation and state have shuttered, and Pink Heals of Gregg County is the last operational chapter in Texas. As a result, the team will go a little farther away from home than it once did.

People also don’t volunteer their time as much as they used to, Steven Denfeld said. He reminds prospective volunteers that they don’t have to be at every single function of the chapter — they can give what time they have. People interested in donating or volunteering, and those who’d like to set up a home visit or fundraiser, can call Tammy Denfeld at (903) 738-9536.

“It’s your actual time and your presence and your love for knowing whoever we’re busy or doing something for,” she said.

And that love oftentimes grows.

“There were people that made it through their cancer and now are five-, 10-, 15-, 20-year survivors, and we can still see them in the community today,” Denfeld said. “They’ll come up and give us a hug and just tell us, ‘Thank you.’ And that in itself is huge because some of them told us stories about, ‘Man, you don’t know what something so simple did for me because I did meet that dark hole. I did run into that time where I thought it was over, didn’t know which way to turn.’

“That means that we did something that was truly worthwhile because we’ve made a difference in somebody’s life.”