The Roachy Fund's mission is to help others follow their dream to “make art and play games.” The Fund will provide scholarships to college bound students who plan on pursuing a degree in art and/or game design.  The scholarship was established to honor Alan Roach, a loved and respected leader in the toy and game industry.  Alan’s creativity and love for games brought so much joy to the world. He was filled with eternal enthusiasm for gaming, laughing and life itself. Even in sickness, Alan never lost his sense of humor and desire to make every day as fun as possible. In the final months of his life, Alan shared that all he really wanted to do was to “make art and play games.” The Roachy Fund Scholarship was established to help others who share his passions and to honor his legacy.

Alan’s love for art and playing games started at a young age as he collected comic books and drew cartoons for a local newspaper. During his college years, he attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where he graduated with a degree in Industrial Design. In 1992, Alan began what would be a 23-year career with Hasbro Games, where he found his true passion for both designing and playing games. In 2014 he took his many years of industry expertise with him and joined a long time friend and mentor at Grand Prix International, a manufacturer and developer of tabletop games.

Here’s an update from 2021 Scholarship Recipient, Harrison Brooks, “My first year at Northwestern University has allowed me to pursue a lot of what the Roachy Fund scholarship is about. While I am still passionate about toys/games, I have also been exploring new ways to design and create in the McCormick school of Engineering. I’m pursuing a major in Manufacturing and Design Engineering and will likely minor in Entrepreneurship. A class that really pushed my thinking this year was Design Thinking Communication, which introduced me to the design research process and the dynamic of creating in a team environment. My team created “The Clampanion”, a device designed to assist in opening containers for people who have limited use in their arms due to strokes / spinal cord injuries. Separately, through the Garage, Northwestern’s entrepreneurship hub, I pitched an app called Folium, which sought to gamify and build an online community around building sustainable habits. I have continued to work on my card game, ElevatorUp, which I launched back in 2020. Since receiving the Roachy scholarship, I have completed two print runs and continue to sell on Amazon, where it recently surpassed 200 reviews with a rating of 4.7 stars. I am so grateful for having received this scholarship, and I will always continue to create and make!”

To apply download a copy of the application here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LHpB8OxQv7inhIjs2L_D0O19Jqo5u33dNqCLDxaeHiY/copy

Deadline for 2022 applications is April 22, 2022.

For more information email theroachyfund@gmail.com or visit our Facebook page