Our Story

Trula Foundation was founded with the goal of getting ahead of mental illness on college campuses and was first inspired by the late Lindsay Atwood, a business leader in Utah, a philanthropist, and a member of the Board of Trustees at Dixie State University. 

One afternoon, Lindsay was at lunch with the President of DSU when the president received a phone call that a student had died by suicide. That phone call impacted Lindsay. He had lost both of his brothers to suicide and it was an issue that touched him deeply. He called his nephew, Jeremiah Riley, a couple of days later and said, “We need to do something! We are losing students to suicide on campuses when there are so many people and resources to help.” Lindsay and Jeremiah, along with Rick Atkin, put their minds together, and began developing a concept where they could better align the resources on college campuses to help students who need support, when they need support. The result was the creation of Trula Foundation, a non-profit in Utah that specifically focuses on finding and training students to be a support to their peers on college campuses.

Lindsay was so passionate about the need for peer coaching as an intervention, that he donated $1 million of his own money to create a scholarship endowment to award scholarships to students who volunteer as peer coaches to support their fellow students. Rick and Jeremiah further partnered with the Utah System of Higher Education to create the peer coaching program, TrulaCampus™. Trula Foundation was officially formed on October 9, 2019 and began running TrulaCampus™ on July 1, 2020.

We are passionate about helping students build their confidence and increase their resilience as they pursue the goals that are important to them. We feel that peer coaching will help students on their journey to discover themselves and thrive!