From South West Rocks and Sydney, two mothers are working together to keep children safe in holiday hotspots during the Christmas season.
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Signs, a heart-filled story and an important message to drivers to slow down and for parents to hold their children's hands is the goal of the Little Blue Dinosaur Holiday Campaign.
Living 500 kilometres apart, Michelle McLaughlin and Julie Hennessy connected through shared grief, and are now working together in hope that no parent must go through losing a child as they did.
South West Rocks resident Ms Hennessy lost her 36-year-old son Josh suddenly two years ago, and as part of trying to cope with the loss, she listened to podcasts.
She came across the podcast 'Spirit Sisters' hosted by Karina Machado, which delves into women's experiences with the afterlife.
Michelle McLaughlin from Sydney was a guest-speaker on the podcast and she told the tragic story of losing her four-year-old son, Tom, in a road accident.
This is where Ms Hennessy first heard of the The Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation launched by Ms McLaughlin and her husband Dave as a means to prevent further tragedies.
While on a family holiday in the Central Coast in 2014, Tom walked onto a road and was tragically hit and killed by a car.
On the podcast, Ms McLaughlin described taking her son out the front the morning of the accident where they saw some children "playing cricket in the middle of the road, some kicking a ball from one side to the other, and others scootering around".
The mother of three says "the roads look different" in those holiday spots.
"They don't have line markings, they don't have curb and gutters, they sort of blend seamlessly to the grass verge...and they're quite narrow," she said.
At home in Sydney, Tom knew that a gutter was a boundary, and that the dangerous road started at the curb.
"Because there was no curb and guttering, Tom didn't realise that it was a road and not the footpath, and he was playing and stepped out and a car hit him," Ms Hennessy said.
"So it's Michelle's mission to make people aware of the dangers for children particularly."
With a shared experience and eagerness to turn heartache and hardship into something positive, Ms Hennessy reached out to Ms McLaughlin and offered her help in getting the important safety message to the popular school holiday destination and her hometown of South West Rocks.
"It's my passion to help people with their grief," Ms Hennessy said.
As a member of South West Rocks Rotary, Ms Hennessy introduced the club to the foundation, which worked together with Kempsey Shire Council to fund and install 'Slow Down Kids Around' and 'Hold My Hand' signs that can be seen at key carpark and local traffic areas around the popular tourist town.
As a prime holiday destination for the Christmas and summer holidays, South West Rocks has increased visitors and therefore additional cars on the roads.
Council said the message to take care on our roads when children are around during busier periods is important and ask that parents hold their children's hands and drivers slow down and take extra care.
Kempsey Shire Council is one of 63 councils across Australia that share the foundation's child pedestrian road safety message.
The signs have been erected in South West Rocks in preparation of Christmas school break. Now the mothers are looking to promote them.
"People will see them and wonder what they are. We want them to understand why they're there, and the seriousness of it," Ms Hennessy said.
"I think we need to educate the parents more than the kids."
Ms McLaughlin will be launching the Little Blue Dinosaur Holiday Campaign on Friday, December 2 at 3.30pm near South West Rocks Preschool, corner of Trial and Gothic Streets.
RSVP to info@littlebluedinosaur.org or julie@viper-42.com
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