Sanford Center hosts inaugural True North Guns N' Hoses charity boxing event

BEMIDJI — First responders from near and far took a night off from fighting crimes and fires on Saturday. Instead, they went head-to-head for a charity boxing event.

A total of 26 police officers, firefighters and first responders gathered at the Sanford Center to put months of training to the test for the inaugural True North Guns N’ Hoses boxing event, and to raise funds for a nonprofit organization called Heroes Helping Heroes.

Hundreds of fans, family members and friends took their seats as the lights dimmed and the spotlight pointed toward the runway. The night started off with the singing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" by Josh Peterson followed by a moment of silence to reflect and remember the fallen first responders.

Then, one by one each boxer made their way to the ring in the center of the arena for a night of friendly competition.

Although, judging by the literal blood, sweat and tears these professionals left out on the mat after the sparring pairs touched gloves and the fighting bell rang, every single one of them fought with everything they had.

This didn’t come as a surprise, though, considering these heroes fight every day for the safety of others.

In the words of Heroes Helping Heroes President and Founder Chris Steward, the event was for the officers and firefighters to air out their disputes in public and have a bit of fun, but the true purpose was to fight the stigma surrounding mental health issues that comes with the job.

“(This event) gives our organization and more importantly, the first responder community, an opportunity to hear what services we provide and start accepting, and hopefully treating, mental health that goes in line with the first responder profession,” Steward said. “We see horrific things on a daily basis and unless we cope with it in a healthy way, it's going to destroy our life.”

Steward started this organization with a calling to help all first responders, both active and retired, who suffer from work-related mental health issues — specifically Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

According to the Department of Justice, an estimated 15% of law enforcement officers suffer from PTSD, and those are just the percentage of professionals who are willing to come forward or seek help.

While Steward and his team aim to help officers, firefighters, EMTs, correctional officers and many more, events like Guns N’ Hoses are targeted to help educate and remind the public just how much these professionals give for their communities.

There’s no question that law enforcement officers, firefighters and other first responders risk their lives on a daily basis when they walk out the door — not to mention the stress it puts on their loved ones as well.

On top of staying in shape, mentally and physically, for the safety of their community, some who took part in the charity boxing match have been hard at work training for Saturday night under the watchful eyes of Bemidji Boxing Club owner Joe Lorenzi.

“We started training in November and a lot of these (participants) have never trained for something like this before. So we started by trying to get them in shape and taught them some basic technique,” Lorenzi said. “But once they were in a place where we could pick it up a little bit, a lot of them just fell in love with it.”

Besides owning and operating the Bemidji Boxing Club, Lorenzi is a police officer for the city of Bemidji. He also used to dabble in the sport himself, competing in over 70 amateur matches and 11 professional fights.

“I just wanted to say thank you to Sanford Center for this opportunity and hopefully we can look forward to many more of these to come,” Lorenzi added.

That is the plan, anyway. Sanford Center General Manager Sheila Murphy advocated for bringing this event to town because she’s witnessed other communities come together for a cause as good as this one.

“This is something that I've done in other venues and when I saw that they haven't done one here yet, I knew Bemidji needed something like this,” said Murphy. “The event itself is really supposed to be about community and getting the community involved with the first responders. They're always helping us in emergency situations so this shows another side to them and brings them together to have some fun.”

Murphy’s goal is to make the Guns N’s Hoses charity event an annual occurrence.

“This is something we want to do every year. We want the community to come out and support our local first responders,” she said. “It's going to take a while to build it up, but we had a good start this year considering not many people knew what to expect.”