A South Dakota man has channeled the pain of losing a child into a unique mission, running through every state capital in the contiguous 48 states.
He is in Montana this week hoping to reach Helena by the weekend.
"Helena will be our next capital, be number 11," said Josh Nehring.
Nehring was on old Highway 10 outside Forsyth on Monday and was about 3,000 miles into a 17,000-mile journey.
He's doing this all in honor of his daughter who died several years ago and he is motivated to help others.
Early Wednesday afternoon, Nehring was about 17 miles into his 58.2-mile run after starting at 3 a.m.
“The hardest part is mentally just keeping yourself in the game to get those miles in because it's hard to just keep going,” Nehring said.
The Nehring’s daughter, Lily, died in a car crash in Wyoming seven years ago when she was 13 years old.
“We call her an old soul,” Nehring said. “A joyous girl that found fullness in life in every aspect. She loved music and dance and athletics and food and her family and church.”
“Three months after Lily had passed and I was in the darkest time,” said Stacy Nehring, Josh’s wife.
Stacy Nehring says on her first Mother's Day after Lily died, it helped her to tell the story of her daughter. And she has found that helps others too.”
“I found healing in listening to their stories,” Stacy Nehring said. “And then they found healing, just sharing their story.”
The family started SRVIVRS to offer support to those who have lost a loved one or friend.
“SRVIVRS is a service organization and really to help people who are dealing with grief to find a soft place to land and a reasonable and good way to move forward in life,” Josh said.
The run, called the Black Pearl Project, started in Rapid City, South Dakota, and will take Josh and his family to 48 states to help raise awareness about grief.
The whole family is taking the trip and the six children will start home-school on Friday.
Josh is the only one running all 17,000 miles But Stacy and crew director Noah Buchholz will keep Josh company on parts of the run.
“Every week at some point, I feel like I'm definitely carried by angels,” Josh said. “And yeah, it's awesome.”
The plan is to arrive in Billings on Tuesday and in Helena on Friday.
