At the push of a button, the battery-powered vehicle into which Katelyn Bennett was strapped surged forward.
The 3-year-old with pigtails broke into a huge smile, her eyes bright behind purple-framed glasses.
Pressing down repeatedly on the large white button, she navigated her way around a room.
Many other youngsters would enjoy such a toy, but the vehicle gave Katelyn something she had lacked: the ability to control her own mobility. She was born with spina bifida, a disease that affects the spinal cord.
With no feeling below her waist, she struggles with fine motor control.
Her parents, Ed and Heather Bennett of Hilliard, grew frustrated by the lack of toys available for their youngest daughter. (They also have Summer, 7, and Chloe, 6.)
Even when they could find toys fitted with adaptive switches (large enough for disabled children to press), they often found the cost prohibitive (anywhere from $50 to $150).
In response, Mrs. Bennett in April 2013 formed a nonprofit, Katelyn's Krusade, and in February 2014 opened Katelyn's Kloset -- a " library" of adaptive toys that parents of children with disabilities can borrow.
The vehicle, for example, that Katelyn was recently driving -- patterned after Thomas the Tank Engine -- had been rewired. Instead of being operated by a foot pedal, it features the easy-to-use button.
The adapted toys "promote interactive play," said Bennett, 34.
"Her sisters like to play with her, but this way she can do it on her own, too. You learn cause and effect -- `When I do something, this toy sings or dances' -- and that's so much more fun than watching someone else push a button for them."
Bennett leases a room at the Easter Seals Central and Southeast Ohio building in Hilliard -- where shelves are filled with toys of all types, labeled by category ("lights and sounds," "action figures" and so on).
Families can check out a toy for 30 days (and, if desired, renew it for another 30).
Word of the library opening spread quickly not only throughout the close-knit community of families with disabled children but also to those who serve them.
Demand for the toys exceeded Bennett's expectations.
"We just were here for families," she said. "Our thought was that therapists and teachers, they had the resources (to acquire adaptive toys) and they'd do what they need to do. But that really wasn't the case. A lot of them came to borrow toys."
Among them was Ann Horton, a physical therapist with the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities who met the Bennetts when she provided home-based care for Katelyn.
The increased stimulation and mobility that children receive from adaptive toys, Horton said, " can be life-changing."
"It makes therapy fun, and a lot of stuff with therapy can be not fun."
To cover the costs of Katelyn's Kloset -- for toy purchases and building rent -- Bennett initially charged a $50 annual membership fee. By early this year, though, increased financial support from businesses and individuals allowed her to waive the fee, making the service free.
Katelyn's Krusade has an annual budget of about $20,000, with about half raised through an annual 5-kilometer walk, Bennett said.
Not long after opening the library, she expanded the offerings to battery-powered vehicles. An engineer for Honda of America, she found that rewiring the vehicles wasn't too difficult.
She also began hosting monthly workshops, in which volunteers learn how to assemble buttons and switches, and properly wire the toys and vehicles.
Unlike the toys, the vehicles are fitted specifically for each child who needs one. And the child can keep the vehicle until he or she outgrows it.
Mobility, experts and parents say, makes a huge difference for children with disabilities.
"He used to just be a bump on a log," said Brian Jones, a Dublin resident who received a Thomas the Tank Engine vehicle for 2-year-old son Charles, who has cerebral palsy.
"Now he's zooming around, banging into things. He's adventurous.
"I see smiles, and he's happy that he's getting to see other parts of the house that he wouldn't see unless we were walking through with him."
The workshops have stirred a ripple effect of sorts in the community.
Through word-of-mouth and some personal connections, students from Ohio State University and Hilliard Davidson High School who are interested in engineering began volunteering.
For Connor Yarcheck, who started helping at the workshops while attending Davidson, getting involved has sparked a passion.
With several classmates, he helped develop a new type of button. As a freshman attending the OSU campus in Mansfield, he hopes to make blueprints for the buttons available to the public soon.
"I've really been driven by it and moved by it (the experience)," said Yarcheck, 19. "To see that I could engineer something that might impact somebody -- you don't get that in a high-school class. I am doing something now that feels purposeful."
Horton, Jones and others marvel at the time and effort that Bennett has given to the project, especially considering that she works full time and has two other children besides her daughter with special needs.
Bennett shrugs off praise.
"We're just here to serve these families and to love on these kids," she said, "and just give them something that they may not be able to get otherwise."
