HeartSupport and August Burns Red cap off a powerful 2025 with Christmas Burns Red

When August Burns Red unexpectedly became a Christmas favorite with their seasonal smash Sledding Hill, Christmas Burns Red was a natural follow-up annual event. As of the 2025 holiday season, it has become a full weekend festival event, drawing heavy music fans from around the country.

In 2025, the lineup supporting August Burns Red included Currents, Invent Animate, Animals As Leaders, and Boundaries, among others. Fans descended on Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to experience heavy music celebrating the season — and celebrating a year of mental health hope from HeartSupport, the organization founded by August Burns Red frontman Jake Luhrs.

Sarah was one of the music listeners who had traveled to be there with her whole family. It was her son who noticed the Support Wall and immediately wanted to be a part of it. He rushed over to the wall, eagerly writing a message of care and support for a girl in attendance who had opened up on the wall.

“Then out of nowhere, the girl he had written to had come up to the booth,” Sarah says in awe. “It was really cool to get to meet her. She was really insecure. She wondered how she mattered in this life. Her importance, her self-worth — she was really struggling. The whole portion of listening to her, my son interacting with her, and her thanking him and taking a picture. It really struck my heart. It’s beautiful.”

The interaction was especially meaningful to Sarah because in this girl who her son had connected to, she was seeing a younger version of herself.

“We got the beautiful opportunity to reach out to someone who is going through something that I actually have already been through,” the mom explains. “So that was the beautiful portion of it, through my son recognizing that wall and saying ‘hey mom, this is amazing.’ We got to do this. And it opened up a beautiful opportunity for me to share my story with her. I’m 40, and she’s a teenage girl, and she’s beautiful. And I got to let her know that right now, it might not seem like she’s going to go anywhere. But she got to hear from me that it’s going to be OK. Her tomorrow’s coming. The fog seems like it has settled in on that mountain, but just keep taking steps.”

The girl Sarah’s family got to surround with love was one of many whose life was changed by interacting with HeartSupport at Christmas Burns Red. 20 people opened up about their mental health over the course of the weekend, sharing stories of deep pain and being met with love through 100 replies.

“On Day 1, a man passed by the wall 3 times at a distance. On the third time, I struck up a conversation. I could feel the energy coming off of him- he desperately needed the support, I could see it in his face,” recalls Taylor, who was volunteering at the Support Wall. “We talked for about 15-20 minutes, and I managed to get him to feel comfortable enough to write a red tile. He finished the tile and showed me, then broke down in tears and walked away.”

When Taylor saw what he wrote, he understood why. The tile read, “My wife and I are divorced and we have a daughter together. My ex wife has since remarried and the step father has raped my daughter. I tried taking him to court, but there wasn’t enough evidence to fully convict him. So he’s now back to living with my ex wife and my daughter. It takes every fiber in my being not to try to kill him.”

Those incredibly weighty words sat on the words. But the metal community was there for this hurting fellow fan.

Taylor says, “After August Burns Red had wrapped up, I came back to the Wall to find every space filled up under his support tile with such amazing and heartwarming support from fellow attendees. We saw the man come back to the wall before leaving to read all the responses and see the love and support that his fellow fans had filled the wall with.”

Christmas Burns Red was the perfect cap for a year of incredible on-the-ground outreach. With over 470 fans opening up on Support Walls across the country throughout 2025 and over 1,800 other fans replying, these impactful moments at the end of the year were the perfect conclusion to a life-changing year.

Sarah says it best with her parting advice: “If you see that Support Wall, make sure you reach out.”

We’re committed to bringing Support Walls across the United States in 2026, going from 4 Walls to 24. Will you help fund that kind of growth so we can continue healing the scene at even more events in the year ahead?