Welcome Letter

Happy New Year! Our scholarship and grant recipients are off to a running start in 2011.

An ESA Foundation grant is helping the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. create a Digital Youth Center to promote digital literacy skills among teens. The Children’s Health Education Center, a 2011 grant recipient, is creating Act Now!, an e-learning program to combat bullying, which will be delivered to over 600 classrooms in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. Our scholarship recipients are also back at school pursuing their passions for video game development thanks to scholarship support from the foundation.

In this edition of the ESA Foundation newsletter, we highlight the great work being done by Starlight Children’s Foundation, which works to improve the lives of children with life-threatening illnesses and life-altering injuries. We also caught up with Anthony Young, a 2009 scholarship recipient who just started his last semester at Michigan State University.

As always, thanks for your support!

Jenny Lai
Vice President, ESA Foundation

Tweens Helping Tweens Cope with Chemo

Starlight Children’s Foundation’s web series called “Coping with Chemo” (www.starlight.org/chemo) is helping young adults get the answers they need to deal with chemotherapy. Tween and teen cancer survivors, as well as medical experts, helped develop the series, which chronicles the stories of two young adults with cancer and their struggle to cope with their disease and chemotherapy treatment. Each webisode addresses a different topic, including getting diagnosed, side effects, telling friends and celebrating the last treatment.

“We’re thrilled to see the success of the ‘Coping with Chemo’ series. It has helped many young adults understand the challenges of life with cancer and undergoing chemo, and get answers to some of their most difficult questions,” said Claudia Linh, Associate Vice President of Operations, at Starlight Children’s Foundation.

The webisodes have won numerous awards, including two Web Marketing Association WebAwards for "Outstanding Website" and “Health Care Standard of Excellence”; "Best of Category" in the Horizon Interactive Awards, a "Merit Award" from One Show Interactive; an "official honoree" designation from the Webby Awards "Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics"; and a Gold Summit Creative Award.  

To learn more about ESA Foundation grant opportunities, visit http://www.theesa.com/foundation/application.asp

A New Frontier

When ESA Foundation scholarship recipient Anthony Young got a Super Nintendo at age seven, he decided then and there that he wanted to make a career out of bringing the gaming experience to others. He is now a senior at Michigan State University, pursuing a degree in digital media art and technology, and he’s excited about where the industry is heading.

“There are so many amazing things happening in the gaming development field. I really feel like video games are the new frontier of art,” Young said.

The ESA Foundation offers up to 30 scholarships annually to high school and college students like Young who are pursuing degrees that will lead to careers in game development.

“It’s important that the industry doesn’t lose out on a person’s skills just because they weren’t given the same opportunities as someone else,” Young added. “The ESA Foundation scholarship helps the industry open its doors to as much talent as possible by providing opportunities to minorities and females, who are underrepresented in the field.”

To learn more about the ESA Foundation scholarship program, visit the website, http://www.theesa.com/foundation/scholarship.asp.