On November 6th, 2005, two-year-old C.J. Martin settled in for a family night at his great-grandmother's mobile home in Evansville, Indiana, just 20 lots away from his own parents' mobile home. With his "Gammy," Jean Martin, 70, and his "Gamma," Julie Dean, 46, he would eat snacks, play games, and watch TV before snuggling into bed. It was one of his favorite things to do.

But that night, a fierce tornado blew through the area, destroying many of the mobile homes in the park. The residents had not been warned, and were unprepared for the disaster. Tragically, Jean Martin's home was obliterated, and all three family members were killed.

The news was heartbreaking for everyone, but most of all to C.J.'s parents, John and Kathryn Martin. To make matters even worse, they could not even grieve their family's devastating losses in peace: They were forced to evacuate their home for five months, even though they had nowhere else to go.

The weeks and months that followed were "so hectic and chaotic," says Kathryn Martin. "My whole life was unbelievably altered."

Luckily, the kindness of friends and strangers helped her pull through. In the days after the tornado struck, a group of volunteers went into the woods, sifting through the debris and wreckage that the tornado had strewn about to collect all the photographs they could find of C.J.

"If it wasn't for strangers, I would have no pictures of my son," she says.

While Martin received incredible generosity from the people that she met, aid organizations were another story. "It's so difficult to figure out what organizations are available to help people," she says.

The Martins and their three surviving children received little support from the organizations they asked for help, and "there was nothing for kids following a disaster," she says. Her children were afraid and nervous about the unfamiliar situation, with nothing to distract them: Their toys had all been lost or destroyed in the tornado.

Though many parents in Martin's position would have been paralyzed by grief, she drew from the tragic experience to help others whose lives have been devastated by a natural disaster. Last year, after a tornado destroyed a town in Indiana, she drove there with a car-full of toys, and sat there playing and coloring with a group of children who had lost their home. Despite what they had been through, the children seemed thrilled with the distraction – which gave Martin an idea.

In November 2006, she launched a nonprofit organization called C.J.'s Bus. Using a donated school bus, which was painted bright yellow and adorned with a photo of her son's beaming face, she created a mobile space for emergency child care, where children could play with toys, take part in fun activities, and feel safe after a natural disaster. Her program helps to preserve the children's innocence and keep them out of harm's way, while also giving their parents time to take care of all the details that must be attended to after a natural disaster.

Since its launch, the bus has traveled to several tornado-stricken towns. Its next stop is Tennessee, where a few towns were blown apart by a tornado last Tuesday. Everywhere Martin and her crew of volunteers have traveled, their "playground on wheels" has received an overwhelmingly positive response from kids and their parents alike.

Though Martin still misses C.J. immensely, she takes comfort in the fact that the work she is doing provides so much help to people who've lost everything, as she had.

"I could think of no greater legacy to my son than to help put smiles on the faces of other children facing these traumatic situations," she says.


Original story by Kathryn Hawkins