Lake Mills high school student Tyler Olson, the junior who was injured during a Friday night football game against Forest City back on September, 5th in Forest City, Iowa, hears of the support of the community from his St. Marys hospital room in Rochester.

This past Saturday morning hundreds of people in Lake Mills went the extra mile for their hometown son. Friends and family of Olson’s put on their running shoes in Lake Mills to raise money to help with the cost of his recovery.

It has been nearly two months now since Olson’s football injury that severely damaged his spinal cord.

Olson’s former teacher Amanda Brezina wanted to help the family pay for his medical expenses, so she teamed up with his friend Haley Mathews and organized a 5-kilometer run.

“We really didn’t expect it to be this big,” Brezina said.

As participants in Saturday’s event showed up to register they received, as part of their donation, a specially designed T-shirt for the benefit run.

Their hopes are that the shirts and other items will be a reminder to keep praying for Tyler.

Brezina said that she hopes that people will not stop praying for Tyler, as he still has a ways to go.

The fundraising didn’t stop there as a silent auction, dinner and bake sale took place Sunday at the Lake Mills Community School.

The events on Sunday were co-sponsored by Thrivent, the Lake Mills Foundation and Modern Woodmen of America as well as the Lake Mills and Forest City Class of 1978.

This past week Tyler’s sister Kessa, a freshman at Iowa State University in Ames went and spent a couple of days with her little brother and she reported that he has been on a couple of outings recently where he got to go the mall.

“He is in good spirits and he has a really good attitude,” Kessa said.

When asked if there is something she thinks about often when she thinks about her brother, she said, “Oh, I think about so much but the one thing is, I just wish I could take his place.”

It is obvious when talking to Kessa and reading the journal on Tyler’s website that he comes from a very loving, caring and believing family.

The family is looking forward to a day trip that they are currently planning with school officials so that Tyler can come and spend a day back at his school with friends and attend classes. The trip is tentatively planned for next week sometime.

For more information on Olson’s journey a website has been set up at: www.caringbridge.org/visit/tylerolson .

The site has been created to keep friends and family updated about Tyler’s progress and has a journal, a photo gallery and it allows you to drop Tyler a line in the guest book.

A personal thank you from Tyler can be watched at the following site; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ltftq_3dk0