As vice president of community relations and social impact for the LA Sparks, Natalie White is on a mission to create opportunities in health and wellness, women empowerment and youth sports. In a recent initiative, the LA Sparks have partnered with Girls Got Game to launch a free summer and fall program. This program aims to provide Black and Brown girls with unique opportunities to excel in gaming, e-sports and beyond, reflecting the organization’s commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion in these fields.
White spoke with rolling out about the importance of the initiative and the value of investing in the lives of young girls.
Why is this initiative important for the LA Sparks?
It’s important because we want to make sure that we are providing opportunities to expose our Black and Brown girls to new opportunities and new career fields within STEM. This was a great opportunity, and the Boys & Girls Club is an organization that we work closely with. They do an outstanding job of preparing our young ladies. This was the perfect fit and the perfect opportunity for us within our community partnership.
What do you all think about corporate citizenship and how that matters when you show up in the community?
Representation matters. We service a lot of areas, even within Los Angeles County and in the surrounding counties. We want to make sure that we are showing up for our youth within different aspects of the areas. We focus on health and wellness, women and girl’s empowerment, and our youth sports platform with our junior sports counseling clinic that we do. We do social justice [and] youth marches. [We also do] youth panels to just listen to them and understand what their perception is of how we can help them navigate through society.
We also work with women veterans through our mental health initiatives. We have five pillars, and we work within those pillars. The key is the youth empowerment piece. That’s our priority, and we will continue to partner with outstanding organizations to make sure that these kids’ voices are heard and also provide opportunities they may not even heard of.
What would you tell organizations, companies and CEOs about the greatest advantages of investing in our girls?
We have to lean in, and we want them to be the model. I’m an advocate of lift as you climb, and we have to continue to do that. We don’t do, as women, enough of supporting each other. As much as we talk about it, we need to do it more because these young girls are watching. As we congratulate those who are at the executive level who can make those decisions, we need to empower our young girls to do the same. So, when they see that teamwork — when they see us patting each other on the back, when they see us being happier for someone else than we are for ourselves and pouring into each other — that’s going to trickle down to them and it’s going to be very infectious. We need to be the leaders that we claim to be every single day because we never know who’s watching.
Girls Got Game is partnering with the LA Sparks to build and encourage the following:
• Girls empowerment: Encourage girls to stay in school, go to college and earn scholarships by playing the games they love.
• Skill development: Increase the creative, critical thinking and motor skills of the students.
• Industry preparation: Teach girls how to secure jobs in the gaming and esports industry.
• Higher education: Increase college enrollment rates (2- and 4-year programs).
• Community impact: Reduce truancy and crime rates.
For youth registration, to get more information or to partner with Girls Got Game, please visit: www.girlsgotgameusa.org
To view the full interview, click the link.
