Olympian Ellis Coleman and his mother, Yolanda Barral.

A single mother who has worked hard to get her children out of a rough Chicago neighborhood, Yolanda Barral has never gone on a vacation with her family.

That's all about to change, thanks to the generosity of the family's hometown. Their first trip together will be to London, where they will watch Barral's son, Ellis Coleman, go for the gold as an Olympic wrestler.

"What I really love the most is that me and my family have never had a family trip together, so for all of us to be together on a trip for the first time to see a once-in-a-lifetime thing like this is awesome,'' Barral told TODAY.com.

At the U.S. Olympic wrestling trials in April, Barral spent her entire savings to see her son wrestle in person for the first time since he was in high school.

The good news was that the $500 tax refund she saved allowed her to see Coleman, 20, qualify for his first Olympics when he won the Greco Roman 132-pound weight class. The bad news was that the cost of following him to his next step — competing for a gold medal in London — was upwards of $5,000, a sum that made it impossible for her to go.

That’s when the wrestling program at Coleman's old high school and the family’s hometown of Oak Park, Ill., stepped in to make sure Barral would be there in person to cheer on her son. At a fundraising event at Oak Park High School in late June, more than $14,000 was raised to send Barral and her two other children to London. They will leave on Aug. 2.

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