Kathy's Calm To Chaos Life: Johnson Family of Wilson, NY NEEDS YOUR HELP

**UPDATE 8/1/12**

Offline Donations Can now be sent to

The Johnson Family Benefit Fund
PO Box 487
Wilson, NY 14172

$5 Donations VIA Text Message Can Also Be Made AT

Tragedy struck a local family here in Western New York yesterday morning around 6am. The unthinkable happened.. as the family was asleep in their home their entire house exploded. The explosion could be felt for miles away. It also leveled the entire home, there is nothing left but debris and the home foundation. Jody and Judith Johnson; their daughters Katie, 18, and Sarah, 14; and son Nathan, 16 were inside their home when the explosion occurred early Tuesday morning. Hannah, 16, and Sam, 10 -- had spent the night with a family friend so they were not at home. Sarah did not make it out of the home, she perished in the explosion. Katie - the oldest daughter - is still listed in critical condition. How anyone even survived this explosion is a mystery. The pictures are overwhelming, the out pouring of support is amazing, and this family could use us!

This is my call to all social media! If you are a blogger please tweet and post the link to this story to all your followers and companies you have worked with. Again, they lost everything. They are no longer accepting clothing donations, but are now looking for any type of gift cards or monetary donations. It could take months upon months for even a home owners claim to help them out, in the meantime let's give them some hope that this too shall get better. I don't know this family, but I felt compelled to post about them and put the call to help out there. The bloggers, brands, companies, sweepstakes people, and just twitter folks are all just big hearted people and I'm really hoping that they show this part of New York just how wonderful they all are. For those of you that do not know Wilson, NY is just outside of Niagara Falls, NY. I'm on Grand Island, NY which is an island between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, so this story is very local to me.

If you are going to make any type of donation please include a note letting the Johnson Family know that you heard about their call for help from Kathy's Calm To Chaos Life. I'd really like to show this family how powerful social media can be when something so awful like this happens. I can't imagine losing my home and all its contents, but to also lose a child too. Today people were allowed to search through all the debris looking for family keepsakes - trophies, picture, anything! This just breaks my heart and brings tears to my eyes even writing this post. Let's show the Johnson Family our support!

I'd also like to thank someone I've never met, Jennifer Brown - we started sending messages back and forth on Facebook after seeing each other's posts on a news Facebook page. I do not know Jennifer, but she has been a great help assisting me with tracking down information for donations and addresses. Thank You Jennifer, god bless you and may many good things come to your way!

You can make online donations directly through The Wilson First Baptist Church website and Johnson Family Benefit here.

By Check

Checks can be dropped off or donations made at ANY First Niagara Bank, or mailed to the address below. Checks should be made out to...

The Johnson Family Benefit Fund

Johnson Fund
PO Box 875
Wilson, NY 14172

By Gift Cards

Please feel led to take a trip to Walmart, Tops, Budweys, BonTon or any of the other stores around and buy gift cards of any amount.

Drop Off Locations

There will be 3 locations for dropping monetary gifts or gift cards off.

Ransomville Free Methodist

3924 Ransomville Road
Ransomville, NY 14131

Wilson FB

265 Pettit St
Wilson, NY 14172

Channel 2 News

259 Deleware Ave
Buffalo, NY 14202

If you would feel more comfortable sending gift cards to me and I will forward them on to the church or Channel 2 please email me kathyscalmtochaoslife@gmail.com and I will send you my address.

*Warning - the following pictures are drastic - credit goes to WGRZ Channel 2 - NBC Affiliate for all the photos**

This is the Johnson Home prior to yesterday morning's tragedy