One thing you often hear from people who’ve seen a disaster up close is that images from televisions, the internet and newspapers don’t come close to doing it justice. Another thing witnesses often say is that after seeing such devastation for yourself, you feel like you have to do something to help. Both those things are absolutely true, I recently discovered.

I grew up in western Massachusetts, and during a recent drive to Holyoke to visit my parents, I decided to take a detour through downtown Springfield. I had no agenda; I suppose nothing more than curiosity about what the tornado devastation was really like, after hearing reports from friends and family members (all of whom were unaffected, thankfully), compelled me to see it for myself. My good friend Pamela drove home from work with the tornado about 100 feet from her car at one point and said it was more terrifying than she’d ever be able to put into words; my brother described the aftermath as “something you’d see in Missouri or Afghanistan.”