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" We&amp;#039;ve seen the pictures on the news or maybe even lived the scenes ourselves: A natural disaster strikes and suddenly people who only minutes ago were living their normal lives are left with just the clothes on their backs, and a feeling of despair. But sometimes all it takes is one person to give us the help we need to make it through\u2014 like these four extraordinary women. They were so affected by the terrible events in their own backyards that they immediately stepped up to lend a helping hand to other disaster victims\u2014one stranger at a time. 1. Helping Kids Heal Kathryn Martin, Evansville, Indiana  When a tornado ripped through the small town of Otwell, Indiana, in May 2006, Kathryn Martin, 32, who lived 60 miles away in Evansville, couldn&amp;#039;t get the news of it out of her mind. &amp;quot;I kept thinking, Those poor people. Somebody&amp;#039;s got to help them,&amp;quot; she says. She knew firsthand what they were going through. Six months earlier, in the middle of the night on November 6, 2005, a tornado had struck her town, taking the lives of her 2-year-old son, C.J., her mother-in-law and her grandmother-in-law. The three had been having a sleepover at her grandmother-in-law&amp;#039;s mobile home. Kathryn, her three other children and her husband survived. &amp;quot;It was the most terrible experience of my life,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;That pain will never go away, and it broke my heart to think about what these other families were going through in Otwell, especially the children.&amp;quot; So Kathryn loaded her car with juice boxes, snacks and toys and drove to Otwell. She dropped off the items with the Red Cross, and as she was leaving, she saw a couple sorting through the wreckage of their home while their children watched. Kathryn had a few toys left, so she stopped and offered to play with the kids for a while. &amp;quot;The parents were so grateful that I did that for their children,&amp;quot; she says. On the drive back to Evansville, Kathryn came up with an idea to help more kids. She corraled family, friends and neighbors and spent the next few months organizing homegrown fundraisers: carnivals, car washes, walk/runs. Finally, in August 2007, she unveiled C.J.&amp;#039;s Bus, a 35-foot schoolbus-turned-mobile-playroom. Stocked with bins of video games and DVD s, toys, crafts, books and much more, the bus travels to disaster-torn towns, giving the children there a safe place to play while their parents clean up, tend to paperwork or simply take a break. To Kathryn and her team of 39 volunteers\u2014some of them fellow tornado victims\u2014&amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s just keeping it normal for kids.&amp;quot; So far, C.J.&amp;#039;s Bus has traveled to three states affected by tornadoes or floods, cheering up more than 756 children, ages 3 to 13. Exhausting as it is running the bus in addition to working full-time as a township trustee, it&amp;#039;s what Kathryn feels she was meant to do. &amp;quot;On our third day in Earle, Arkansas, after a tornado there, a little boy asked where I live,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;When I told him Indiana, he couldn&amp;#039;t believe I&amp;#039;d come all that way to help his family. Honestly, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have wanted to be anywhere else.&amp;quot;  To volunteer or make a donation, go to CJsBus.org. Photo: courtesy of Photics, LLC 2. Supporting California&amp;#039;s Bravest Christy Connell, Julian, California  In October 2007, with a wildfire blazing in the hills nearby, the residents of Julian, California, were under orders to evacuate. But less than 24 hours after fleeing to safety, Christy Connell, 46, co-owner of the Julian Bakery and Cafe, raced back home. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d heard from one of the volunteers helping evacuees that the firefighters battling the blaze didn&amp;#039;t have anything to eat,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;And feeding people is what I do best.&amp;quot; The power was out in town, so she and a few other residents who hadn&amp;#039;t evacuated hauled over an industrialsize propane grill from the firehouse a few blocks away. She set it up on the street in front of her restaurant and started pots of beef and beans cooking. The fire chief sent out official word to those battling the blaze that the Julian Cafe was the place to eat. Soon the first group of famished firefighters rolled in on their trucks. Coming straight from the front lines, they shed their gear and dove into their first meal in 12 hours\u2014showering Christy with hugs and spontaneous applause. &amp;quot;You get a group of men who haven&amp;#039;t eaten for 12 hours and you&amp;#039;ll see how grateful they can get,&amp;quot; she laughs. &amp;quot;The joy of just feeding them was enough for me.&amp;quot; For four days, Christy spent nearly 20 hours a day cooking burritos, chicken, steak sandwiches and other food from her restaurant, and serving slices of the cafe&amp;#039;s signature apple pie. Every few hours one of the other locals who&amp;#039;d stayed in town took over grill duty, giving Christy a chance to go home and get a little sleep. (Luckily, the fire didn&amp;#039;t spread.) All told, she served 1,100 meals\u2014at no charge. Steve Sheppard, battalion chief for the Julian Fire Department, says Christy provided much more than comfort food that week: &amp;quot;To have someone stay behind and say, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m here for you guys&amp;#039;\u2014that means a lot.&amp;quot;  To send a donation to support families of firefighters who have died in the line of duty, go to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation at FireHero.org. Photo: courtesy of Angie Brenner 3. Saving Memories Rebecca Sell, Fredericksburg, Virginia  Three months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rebecca Sell, then 24, a photojournalist for Fredericksburg, Virginia&amp;#039;s Free Lance-Star who was on assignment covering the disaster, captured a distraught New Orleans couple sifting through waterlogged photo albums. As she snapped the photo, something within her clicked. &amp;quot;I told them I could take the ruined pictures, copy them and give them digitally restored photos,&amp;quot; she recalls. Although a bit skeptical, the couple agreed. Rebecca took their photos home with her once her assignment ended, restored them and took them to the couple at their temporary residence in Virginia. &amp;quot;It felt so good to be able to do that for them,&amp;quot; says Rebecca. When her editor, Dave Ellis, saw the photo of the couple, he suggested they go back and restore damaged photos for even more people. So in January 2006, with paid time off from the paper, the two set up shop in the Pass Christian, Mississippi, public library, 65 miles from New Orleans (or rather, the double-wide trailer that now served as the library; the original had been destroyed in the hurricane). After posting a notice in the community newsletter, Rebecca and Dave were inundated with 500 photos in four days: water-spotted wedding pictures, baby photos crinkled with moisture. For each, the pair snapped a new digital picture, then used high-tech software to erase water spots and restore colors. &amp;quot;We worked from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day for four days,&amp;quot; says Rebecca. &amp;quot;It was a massive undertaking.&amp;quot; In a stroke of luck, a popular website linked to Dave&amp;#039;s blog about the experience, and soon Operation Photo Rescue, as it came to be known, had emails from hundreds of volunteers, including photographers, restoration experts and Photoshop whizzes, eager to help. Though digital restoration is a painstaking process, mending irreplaceable family pictures means the world to victims like Emily Lancaster, 71, of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, who tossed out piles of ruined photo albums after Katrina, never thinking the mildewed mess could be salvaged. But she just couldn&amp;#039;t bear to part with a few treasured pictures, including a portrait of her father, who had passed away, and a photo of her husband as a boy. Then she heard about Operation Photo Rescue. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t have a whole lot of hope they could fix them, but they did,&amp;quot; Emily says. &amp;quot;Almost every day I think about all the pictures I&amp;#039;ve lost. I&amp;#039;m so happy to have these two.&amp;quot; In the five years since Katrina, Operation Photo Rescue\u2014now headquartered in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with more than 2,000 volunteers\u2014has collected thousands of pictures ruined by floods, hurricanes and tornadoes in such states as Iowa, Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Louisiana. Volunteers make &amp;quot;copy runs&amp;quot; to disaster areas across the country to gather damaged photos from survivors; operating costs are covered by donations and grants. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s great to be able to give people some of their history back,&amp;quot; says Rebecca. &amp;quot;One person told me that thanks to us, her grandmother got to see her photos again before she passed away. Moments like that remind me why I do this.&amp;quot;  To volunteer or make a donation, go to OperationPhotoRescue.org. Photo: courtesy of David Ellis/Operation Photo Rescue 4. Acting as an Advocate Karla Goettel, Cedar Rapids, Iowa  Karla Goettel, 60, fully expected December 2008 to be a crummy Christmas. Her best friend had just passed away, her hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was still reeling from a flood six months earlier, and the idea of splurging on useless gifts held zero appeal. So Karla and her family banded together with a few friends and spent Christmas Day delivering gift cards they&amp;#039;d purchased, as well as some of their own gently used furniture, to people in some of the 5,390 homes that had been severely damaged or destroyed in the flood. At door after door, though, they were encouraged to also give items to a neighbor who was worse off. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s when it struck me that so many people still needed help\u2014 many more than I&amp;#039;d realized,&amp;quot; says Karla. Within days, Karla, an opera singer, started Flood Them With Love to give Cedar Rapids flood victims a voice. She and her 25 core volunteers visit homes of area survivors to figure out what they need, whether it&amp;#039;s household items like linens and dishes or someone to advocate on their behalf with federal and state agencies when bureaucratic red tape delays aid. The team turns to local businesses and individuals for contributions, organizes massive fundraisers (they have raised and distributed $400,000 so far) and stores donated goods in a giant warehouse. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve supplied survivors with everything from furniture to furnaces to false teeth,&amp;quot; Karla says of the more A hug is all the thanks Karla Goettel needs for helping local flood victims. acting as an advocate Karla Goettel, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 4 than 1,000 people and 350 families the organization has helped in the past year and a half. &amp;quot;If a family needs something, we&amp;#039;ll find a way to get it, no matter what.&amp;quot; That includes a new home. This spring, Karla made dozens of calls to government officials to expedite the stalled U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD ) home purchase of April Shireman, a single mother of three whose house was destroyed during the disaster. Soon after the family moved in, the home&amp;#039;s plumbing malfunctioned, and Karla instantly cut an $800 check to pay the plumber. &amp;quot;If it wasn&amp;#039;t for her, I think we&amp;#039;d still be homeless,&amp;quot; says April. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re a single parent who&amp;#039;s struggling, there&amp;#039;s nothing like having Karla in your corner.&amp;quot;  To volunteer or donate, go to FloodthemWithLove.com. Photo: Vaughn Halyard Photo To read more stories of women who stepped up to help others, go to WomansDay.com/Disaster. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/real-women/a2093/lending-a-helping-hand-112631/>