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Joy Saxton has worked passionately with children for over 25 years teaching and developing programs that have made a difference in the lives of young children.  Joy began her career at the age of eight years old anchoring a two time national award winning kids television show called Kids TV Express for over ten years based in Austin, Texas. They did specials on Just Say No to Drugs Campaign, Aids Awareness, Sunshine Kids with Cancer, NASA space missions and more. Joy performed in over 20 plays and was one of 15 Americans chosen to tour Russia during the Cold War with Peace Child, a traveling play.

 

In high school, Joy started a performing arts troop called A Little Laughter Productions and recruited forty young people to produce and perform in a play that toured nursing homes, children’s homes, homes for the mentally handicapped, and hospitals. At age seventeen, she was the youngest student ever accepted into the O’Neill National Theater Institute, which worked with world-renowned theatrical directors, and studied Shakespeare in London.  Joy continued taking college courses at Notre Dame.

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In her early twenties, she started a program called J.O.Y. International, a non-profit organization, and developed and implemented an educational curriculum for elementary schools in Austin, Texas. She produced a television pilot, called J.O.Y. Agents that addressed issues regarding children around the world. The TV pilot received rave reviews, and celebrity child actors from the Disney Channel helped to promote the program.  Joy also produced and directed a short film with NASA about the first humanoid robot in outer space, Robonaut.

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Joy moved to Houston, TX where she became an acting instructor and coach for children for Page Parkes Modeling and Talent Agency, the largest agency in the Southwest.  She started the Joy Kids Studio, an after-school program teaching kids to write, direct, film and star in movies they made.  The program was a big hit in West University premiering kids movies at the historical River Oaks Theater three times a year.  Joy trained thousands of children through her programs, and her students have landed starring roles in major motion pictures, network television series and landed lead roles on Broadway, including a Tony Best Actress nomination.

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Currently, Joy has written and illustrated children's books about places around the world and is touring schools teaching a message of children loving one another. All of Joy's illustrations are paintings using acrylic and watercolor paints. The book has received tremendous praise from educators, children and parents, and was chosen by the Barbara Bush Foundation for their My Home Library, that gives books to economically disadvantaged school children through out Houston, Texas.

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Joy has served on several boards and raised over a million dollars for charities working with an orphanage in India and Africa, Dell Children's Hospital, and United Way.

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