David James says the rain was falling in buckets on the day nearly a year ago when his cellphone buzzed and he received a message that overwhelmed him with disbelief.

The teacher and swim coach at The Woodlands College Park School learned that his 13-year-old son, Peyton, had taken a belt and hung himself from a ceiling fan in the bedroom of the home the boy shared with his mother. The father's tears blurred into the falling rain, as he remembered the years of bullying his son had endured because of his flaming red hair, freckles and glasses.

Now James is rechanneling his frustration and anger. He has found a way to encourage dialogue on a taboo subject - suicide - which is the second-leading cause of death in young adults, ages 10 to 24, and kills more than 40,000 Americans a year.

It's called The Peyton Heart Project, a Facebook page that has been gaining hundreds of new followers a week since its July launch, records show. The site has also inspired hundreds of volunteers to knit and crochet thousands of small hearts and attach positive, life-affirming messages such as "Tomorrow brings new hope" or "You make the world a better place." These hearts are then left in public places, from shopping malls to athletic stadiums, for strangers to find and keep. Finders are encouraged to post photos of their heart and a message on the Facebook page where they learn Peyton's story and find information on suicide hotlines and safe places to talk.

Hearts have been scattered across all 50 states and 40 different countries, from Algeria and Iceland to France and Australia.

Spread the message

Admittedly "not a crafty person," Coach James didn't know how to crochet or knit when this all started. He got the "heart" idea from Jill Kubin, a New Jersey mother who suffers from spina bifida, a spine defect that keeps her partially homebound.

She had spotted Peyton's story while scrolling through the Internet one night and thought something must be done.

A year earlier, her teenage daughter Julia had launched a successful "Sidewalk Smiles" campaign to promote kindness. She stood on street corners holding placards that told passersby, "You are beautiful." Another daughter, Emily, had organized a community project to knit winter hats for the homeless.

Kubin believes that the small handmade hearts may be the best way to spread the message that all people are valuable and their lives matter.

"I believe this project will keep going forever. It has such momentum that I'll have to bequeath it to someone," said Kubin of Morristown, N.J.

James, 49, of The Woodlands, has spread the word about the project to numerous craft and sewing sites that have adopted it. Besides colorful yarn hearts, some have sewn fabric hearts stuffed with filling or even fashioned hearts from clay or wood, he said.

One California woman posted a message about having been suicidal and finding one of the hearts. She wrote that she loves to crochet and that the project had made her happy and given her a sense of purpose. A mother wrote of how appreciative she was of the heart found by her 6-year-old son, who'd lost his father to suicide two years earlier.

"Suicide is not usual dinner-table conversation," James said. "But our hope is to open up a dialogue where people can talk about it. It's treatable and preventable, but it can't be ignored."

'I was mad'

Before this project, he said, his son's death had left him filled with anger: "I was mad at how people had treated him, angry at him for not coming to me and angry at myself for not being able to save him."

Peyton was a nontraditional kid who had no affinity for sports, music, choir or art.

"He had an adorably goofy sense of humor. He loved 'Dr. Who,' Pokemon, anime, video games and reading," his father said. "He liked going with me to Longhorn football games but spent a lot of his time looking at his phone. Mostly we both enjoyed sharing movies together, as I'd been a film major in college."

Peyton's mother, Jacki, also a teacher, and James had divorced when he was 4.

He later entered grade school and performed well. The taunting didn't really start until the second grade, when classmates teased him unmercifully about his red hair and his "dirty" teeth, which were left mottled by the pure oxygen he required as a premature baby who weighed only about 2 pounds at birth, his father said.

By the age of 8, Peyton and his mother had moved from the Houston area to Round Rock in central Texas, where she took a teaching position. But he continued to face bullying. One particularly aggressive fifth-grader "made his life a living hell" by doing such things as pushing him down the stairs, he recalled.

When Peyton was in the seventh grade, James said, the boy's mother took him for an evaluation because when he would get into trouble he would repeatedly remark, "Everyone would be better off without me." Doctors diagnosed him with anxiety and depression and he began treatment.

For a fresh start, he and his mother moved again - to a school district in Georgetown - as he began eighth grade.

'Society admires idiocy'

The day before he took his own life, Peyton was sitting in the cafeteria before school and reading for pleasure when a student ridiculed him for being a nerd and a Christian.

"It's like our society admires idiocy," James said. "Peyton reported the bullying to the principal. But it couldn't be confirmed on video, and nothing happened. Peyton has no coping skills. So he felt let down by those people who are supposed to help him."

He went home, did his chores and then was alone in his room for only 20 minutes when his mother entered and found him hanging from the fan. He was put on a ventilator for several days but never regained consciousness and was declared dead on Oct. 13, 2014.

James said a new state law passed this year now requires teachers and administrators to undergo yearly training in suicide prevention.

"You never know when someone's cup is full and that next little drop could send them over the edge. We think our handcrafted hearts offer encouraging words that could make a difference," said James, who is remarried and has a stepson and three-year-old daughter.

Peyton's mother, Jackie, has started her own campaign, Kindness Matters, to improve how people interact. Her website offers weekly "kindness challenges" that try to show the power of words and she also has addressed this issue as a motivational speaker for school districts.

His mother has distributed the hearts around her community, and enjoyed watching the delight of a young couple and their child when they found one.

She said the world has become too "me centered," and that hers and her husband's campaigns can remind people how to be kind and that could "change the world."

The James' heart project has drawn wide praise.

"I attempted suicide at age 14 due to bullying and adolescent depression," a Sydney, Australia, woman wrote. "I have also recently been through a stint of severe depression and anxiety. So the Peyton Heart Project is a cause that is not only personal to me but close to my heart."

A South Carolina woman wrote that she, too, suffers from depression but that the heart project, for which she volunteers, has lifted her spirits. "I feel like a little girl again - secretly leaving a valentine, then running away giggling, leaving the person wondering who could have ever done it!" she said.

James met with a group of National English Honor Society students at his school Monday. They are volunteering to make and distribute hearts in remembrance this month of the first anniversary of his son's death.

He says project has uplifted him, too, by restoring his faith in humanity.