Erik Cagle | Bits and Pieces: GCSF Seeks to Boost Scholars

With the cost of college tuition in general continuing to skyrocket, incoming students face stiff challenges in scaring up funds through various resources to at least defray their bills. One organization in particular is doing its part to lend a financial hand to future and current collegians who are pursuing a future in printing and graphics-related programs.

The Graphic Communications Scholarship Foundation (GCSF), with its all-volunteer board of officers and trustees, has been assisting Metro New York and New Jersey students since 2002, doling out between $40,000 and (in recent years) $60,000 annually in scholarships to needs-based candidates who have scored highest in the GCSF annual application judging, which includes evaluation of student academic grades/scores, essays, letters of recommendation and graphic portfolios.

But now the GCSF, which presented 28 students with scholarships in 2014, is upping the ante with a campaign to raise more than $100,000 a year for its students, boosting the range of each scholarship from the current $1,000 to $5,000 awards to, ideally, the $2,500 to $7,500 (or higher) levels.

At the helm of this effort is Jerry Mandelbaum, foundation president; Laura Reid, vice president of production at Hearst Magazines and foundation trustee; and Diane Romano, president and CEO of HudsonYards/foundation vice president. All three have a wealth of fundraising experience: Mandelbaum having been affiliated with graphics foundations and awarding scholarships for more than 30 years, and with Reid and Romano having spent many years involved with NYU.

“We think we can raise significant dollars,” Romano told B&P. “Our goal is to raise six figures and help more students. Within the next year or so, I think we’ll hit that goal.”

The GCSF certainly made a splash last December with its inaugural graphics industry holiday bash at The Art Directors Club (ADC) in Manhattan. Nearly 275 industry heavyweights and sponsoring organizations such as Printing Industries Alliance, The Advertising Production Club of New York, IDEAlliance, The Navigators, ADC and Hearst Magazines made the evening a smashing success. During the course of the evening, inaugural GCSF memorial scholarships in the names of industry figures Nina Wintringham and Steve Server were announced.

In all, the holiday bash raked in nearly $15,000 from tickets, raffles, group contributions and individual donations. Considering that fundraising wasn’t the primary reason for the holiday bash, Mandelbaum considered the evening a home run and says it is intended to be an annual event.

The GCSF has even higher hopes for its Spring Fling, a fundraiser that will take place June 4 at the Ogilvy & Mather Rooftop (The Chocolate Factory) on Manhattan’s west side. Corporate sponsorships will be key to this event, with $1,000 contributions netting five tickets to the event for participating firms. The evening will double as a press conference of sorts, as the Printing Industries Alliance (the PIA affiliate for New York state and North Jersey) and IDEAlliance will reveal the honorees for the 2015 Franklin Luminaire Awards, which are set for Oct. 1 at The Lighthouse, Chelsea Piers, in New York. Event net proceeds fund additional GCSF scholarships.

While the scholarships carry a residency requirement, they can be used for printing and graphics-related programs at learning institutions across the country. For example, the 2014 scholarship students matriculated not only at New York City-based schools such as Parsons, Pratt, SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology and CUNY, but also the Rochester Institute of Technology, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Hartford, among others. Thus, the scholarships are also available for local students who are attending, say, Cal Poly and Clemson for their graphic arts/printing programs.

Those residence-eligible graphics students who maintain their GPAs and the requisite portfolios are eligible to apply for the scholarships on an annual basis. Many of the applicants are more than qualified from an academic standpoint.

“The only limitation to these graphics students’ education,” Mandelbaum observes, “is the high cost of education. This is where the GCSF makes its biggest impact, awarding scholarships, as well as donated corporate gifts including Pantone color guides, Quark graphics software and textbooks. In addition to providing money and gifts for college, we help mentor and advise graphics students from middle school through graduate school, coordinate internships and work/study opportunities, and help to increase awareness of rewarding careers in the graphic communications field.”

The 2015 GCSF graphic student scholarship applications are available now and submittal of the completed applications and attachments is due by May 11. The GCSF 2015 Scholarship Awards will be presented at the annual GCSF awards reception and ceremony on June 18 at the Hearst Tower Atrium and Joseph Urban Theater.

Saving Lost Memories: It’s been four years since the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan (March 11, 2011), but many residents still have been unable to return to their homes. Nearly 16,000 people lost their lives, 2,600 remain missing and another 6,500 suffered injuries. The material damage was overwhelming, as more than 127,000 buildings collapsed and another 750,000 were damaged. It was, in short, a disaster of epic proportions.

When nature’s wrath leaves you with little else other than your memories, it’s nice to have tokens of those memories in the form of pictures. One firm that has done its part to aid in this effort is Tokyo-based Ricoh.

With the aid of local government and innumerable volunteers, Ricoh has been able to find, restore and digitally store more than 90,000 photos via its “Save the Memory Project,” which is part of the company’s reconstruction support services. The photos were found and expertly cleaned, then digitized via Ricoh multi-function printers (MFPs) and stored in the cloud. Residents who lost their belongings, including photos, are able to search for them on computers available at five government photo centers. The library contains 400,000-plus digitized photos.

Ricoh’s employees truly stepped up to the plate, with 518 workers from 17 Ricoh Group companies chipping in with the cleansing and digitizing of photos, utilizing specialist fields at each company and open spaces in offices.

No Small Feet: Did you know that NBA Hall of Famer Bob Lanier wore size 22 sneakers? If you did, congratulations, you’re probably a whiz at basketball trivia.

But you might not know that Lanier is the newest multimillion-dollar distributor to join the Proforma Member Network. Yep, the eight-time all-star who averaged 20.1 points per game and 10.1 rebounds for the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks. His Bob Lanier Enterprises—a premium promotional and marketing services business—recently joined Proforma to expand its product and service offerings.

“We know what it takes to build a winning team and that is why we decided to partner with Proforma,” Lanier said. “With Proforma we have access to a wealth of marketing programs, sales tools and major account support unlike any other distributor in our industry.”

Lanier specializes in developing and managing premium promotional programs and comprehensive marketing campaigns. He has a team of four sales representatives in his organization, with more than $3 million in annual sales. Obviously, when the man gets his foot in the door, it opens a world of possibilities. PI