After senior Nolan Sprague was in a diving accident on Thursday, Aug. 9, he has been receiving inpatient care in Colorado to help him regain his motor skills, thanks in no small part to donations of both time and money from our community. Although our community’s effort so far has been impressive, we cannot forget that the accident will affect Nolan for the rest of his life. As a community, we have to continue helping the Sprague family and make sure that what happened is not forgotten.

A GoFundMe page for Team Nolan has raised almost $140,000 for the Sprague family as of Tuesday, Oct. 2 through over 1,300 individual donations. Community events, such as the #TeamNolan kickball tournament, the Bigger Than Baseball event and the sale of Team Nolan merchandise also contributed to raise funds for Nolan and his family expenses during his recovery. Other efforts by community members to help the Sprague family, such as helping them move and redesign their house, giving them meals and assisting with the upkeep of Strike Zone, Nolan’s baseball club, has helped the Sprague family more easily cope with the tragedy.

Oftentimes, tragedies are forgotten in favor of new events and occurrences. Older crises, such as the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, or even newer events, such as Hurricane Florence, may have already been forgotten by the community as our minds turn to more recent events. Forgetting these tragedies is understandable even if it is not helpful, as our community has no personal connection with these disasters. However, to forget Nolan when so many of us have known him for so long would be inexcusable.

However, our community has proven before that we will not forget these local tragedies. After former Mill Valley student Bobby Dyche was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2016, the community rallied in support of him and his family and continued to do so as he fought and recovered from the disease. Just as our community has done before, we will be able to once again band together and continue supporting Nolan.

What has been done so far for Nolan is an incredible result of our community’s hard work and dedication. The time and effort that our community has given to help him and his family thus far is amazing and should be appreciated. However, we have not yet done enough. We must not let ourselves forget about Nolan before he returns to our community. When he comes back, we need to continue to give him support and offer his family help. Our community must do what it has done so many times before: come together to help one of our own.