For the first time since Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey’s shoreline and a gunman opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., firefighter Bill Lavin feels OK.

For a while, the president of a 5,550-member New Jersey firefighters union said he felt “demoralized and crushed and depressed.” But now he has new focus: building 26 playgrounds.

The effort led by the Firefighters’ Mutual Benevolent Association will put playgrounds, one for each of the 20 children and six school employees who died in Newtown in December, will in states hit hardest by the storm — New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.