The Live4Lane Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting youth mental health through scholarships, education, and advocacy hosted its 6th Annual Live4Lane Memorial 5k Walk on Saturday, October 4, 2025, at the Cascades Community Center in honor of Lane Burrows, who passed away tragically in 2019.

Lane’s mother, Maranda Heil, founded the Live4Lane Foundation after his passing to bring more awareness to mental health. “The most important thing and the reason why I started the foundation is when we were struggling to find resources, Lane did not speak up until it was an emergency. And I think the more that we normalize mental health and needing support, people will speak up when they are starting to struggle prior to it being an emergency. That is my one hope,” she said.

The 5k walk was considered a success with about 200 participants. The campaign goal was to raise $10,000, but exceeded it totaling $18,417, all of which will go to the scholarship recipients. Heil said, “One of the major highlights [of the 5k] was to see new community members come into the community event and fully embrace it for what it was established for to not only recognize mental health advocacy, but also bring the awareness and education to the community of how to be a mental health advocate.”

The Live4Lane foundation has awarded over $29,500 in academic scholarships for Dominion seniors. Heil explained, “What I want to do is award mental health advocates that [are] supporting working on bringing the awareness, which then will end, or at least reduce the mental health stigma, or getting more resources in the community… I know that the students graduating, they are our future.”

Cynthia Gonzalez (former editor-in-chief of DHS Press) received the scholarship in 2024. “That was actually the biggest scholarship that I earned outside of what VCU gave me, and I needed it a lot. My parents are not paying for my college. I’m paying for it fully by scholarships. So every cent counted and it was a really, really big portion,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez received the scholarship by mental health advocacy through writing mental health based articles on DHS Press and working on a social media and mental health project. She is now the public relationships intern for Live4Lane.

“To me, it means an opportunity to keep his story alive and his memory alive, and the opportunity to hopefully help other people avoid the same tragedy that he experienced- just bringing awareness to the cause and what happened to him,” Gonzalez said.

All Dominion seniors are eligible to apply for the scholarship who have shown an interest in mental health advocacy, and plan to attend college, university, or trade school. The application process is on the Live4Lane website. Applications open mid-December and the deadline is February 14, 2026.