One Truly Special 13 year-old

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a local thirteen year old boy, Tyler Kautzman, who wanted me to photograph a 5K race he was organizing.  I was intrigued that such a young kid was putting on a 5K, so I did a little research and I couldn’t believe what I found.

Tyler, it turned out, is a truly remarkable young man and at just 13, has built up an impressive list of achievements already.  Tyler’s story begins when he was only 8 years old.  Every 8 year old that I know of wishes of getting the latest toys for his birthday, but not Tyler.  Rather than get presents, Tyler wanted to give them.  His goal was to collect items to ship overseas to soldiers serving abroad.  After collecting over 400lbs of stuff, Tyler teamed up with The Yellow Ribbon Girls to ship everything to the soldiers.  A few weeks later, his care packages eventually ended up in the hands of (now SSG) Sgt. Eddie Greiner, and some of the other soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division he was serving with.

What happened next though, is very special.

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