Lynchburg Beacon of Hope filmed Azariah Cox this month at Heritage High School, creating a video celebrating his status as the first college graduate for the nonprofit, which aims to increase the number of Lynchburg City Schools students who pursue higher education.

Michael Bischoff MA '02, who qualifies for disability benefits because of an aggressive brain cancer, suggests that we think anew about "people who receive disability benefits as released friends, people who are released from the normal world of paid work, with the expectation that they will then contribute creatively, socially, spiritually, and culturally to society in powerful ways."