Saul (L) and Theresa (R) Esman made charitable giving an important focus of their lives.

Gift of Life is honored to remember Theresa Esman and recognize her commitment to our mission. She passed away on March 17, 2017, yet through our relationship with The Saul and Theresa Esman Foundation, her legacy of care for others will carry on for generations to come. 

The Esmans moved to Florida after their retirement from Pittsburgh, where Saul had built a successful sporting goods business. They met while working together at the company. The Esmans were deeply devoted to charitable giving. When Saul passed away after fifty years of marriage, Theresa formalized their charitable work by founding The Saul and Theresa Esman Foundation in his honor. The foundation’s goal was to combat those diseases that are the biggest killers, including the blood cancers that Gift of Life works to cure through marrow and blood stem cell transplantation.

“My husband wanted the benefits of his hard work to help people,” Theresa said in a 1999 interview with the Scripps Institute. “We fund research that will be good for mankind long after I’m gone.”

The Saul and Theresa Esman Foundation has been a generous supporter of Gift of Life, with two major initiatives receiving substantial funding from the Foundation – the Campus Ambassador Program’s Annual Symposium, a training and education session for college interns held each August, and Regalo de Vida, an outreach and service initiative to increase awareness, patient advocacy and donor recruitment in the Latino population, currently under-served worldwide, currently being launched.

Gift of Life Founder and CEO Jay Feinberg said, “We will honor Theresa’s wish to help others by advancing the initiatives begun with her generous support. We are now launching our outreach program in South Florida’s Hispanic/Latino community, which suffers from higher blood cancer rates and lower survival than other ethnic groups in the United States. Today, over half of Hispanic/Latino patients cannot find a matching donor due to under-representation in the global marrow registry. Our goal is to change those odds substantially by increasing diversity and awareness, a mission that she felt was urgent.”

Saul and Theresa Esman Foundation Executive Director Murray Levin said, “Theresa’s concern for others and desire to make positive change in the world was intrinsic to her nature. We will work to ensure her legacy is perpetuated for generations, as she and her husband intended.” 

The Saul and Theresa Esman Foundation’s impact on Gift of Life can be measured in lives saved. The Campus Ambassador Program, has to date facilitated 14 lifesaving transplants and added more than 60,000 donors to the registry.

Gift of Life will perpetuate Theresa Esman’s legacy through the programs the foundation supports, and in the many lives saved through marrow and stem cell transplants. Her memory will be perpetuated for generations thanks to her support.