esports and the military family
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SPEAKERS
Martha Laughman
Founder, Gold Star Gamers
FORMATTedX Style
CATEGORYNonprofit - Social Impact
LEVELBasic Understanding
Gold Star Gamers is a non-profit dedicated to helping kids through the trauma of losing a parent. Through gaming kids can process their feelings, find support from the military community, rebuild natural self esteem and most importantly live out their dream of playing in a professional esport tournament. With a dream come true event right around the corner we are keep the kids focused on something positive in the future and keeping the thoughts of suicide at bay.
Martha Laughman
Founder, Gold Star Gamers
I was a military wife of a special operations wounded warrior (Delta Force). After a decade and a half of struggling on and off he suffered from a brain tumor that separated our family. A year later he died in an accident. The trauma of our boys suffered is difficult to put into words. Our youngest was 9 at the time. Everyday he would put on his Dad's uniform and pretend to talk to him on Discord while he played Fortnite. The playtime was healing and allowed him to process his feelings. Then one day I asked a Solider from Cyber Command to play a game with my son. That is when I realized my son saw military gamers as his hero's not the spec ops guys. I posted on LinkedIn that the Cyber and Mil community should come together to put on a game for kids that lost their Dad in the military. That single post got 100k views and months of support from gamers and military all over the world. Gold Star Gamers launched this past July 4th with a mission to help kids that lost a military parent find hope and healing through competitive gaming. We have hosted 5 summer camps, a mentorship program, gifted gaming set ups, and produced a competitive gaming event where few flew in 12 Gold Star Families.
