CJ’s Bus was born out of three unique ingredients: the personal experience of Jeff Parness following the 2003 San Diego wildfires; Kathryn Martin’s experience providing emergency child care assistance to a family following the May 2006 Otwell, Indiana tornado; and a conversation Jeff and Kathryn had in June 2006 in which Kathryn stated her desire to honor her son C.J.’s legacy by continuing to reach out and help other families by caring for their children in the immediate aftermath of disasters. What came out of this experience was the realization of the need for a mobile recreation unit to drop directly into disaster sites in the immediate aftermath of disasters in order to keep kids distracted in a safe group environment.


Kathryn lost her 2-year-old son C.J., as well as her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law in the deadly F3 tornado which ravaged Evansville and Newburgh, Indiana at 1:58AM on November 6, 2005. The tornado took 25 lives and was one of the deadliest in Indiana history.


As a testament to her character, Kathryn returned to school and received her degree in human services with a special focus on child advocacy; she led the effort to build the Memorial Park for the surviving children and families of Eastbrook Mobile Home Community to enjoy; she's pushing “CJ’s Law” through the Indiana Legislature, with the help of Representative Phil Hoy, that will mandate mobile home manufacturers to pre-install NOAA weather radios in order to provide mobile home residents with potential life-saving warnings in the event of future storms; and she reached out in May 2006 to the families in the neighboring community of Otwell, Indiana who were also hit by an F3 tornado – with a very simple and kind gesture:


Kathryn loaded up her car with coloring books, crayons and juice boxes, and along with a friend, went about searching for children playing in the debris and offered their parents to keep their kids distracted for a few hours by sitting down with them and coloring.


This simple gesture provided immeasurable relief to the families she and her friend Brandi Crawley-Gish assisted, as these parents were given a few hours to attend to their immediate recovery needs. And it also provided these children with the opportunity to maintain their innocence as children in the face of disaster.


Please read more about CJ's Bus on their website.