Azura Inc

Azura Literacy (formerly 12Books) -Statistics show that children who are non-proficient in reading by the 4th grade are four times less likely to graduate high school. If theyre living in poverty, they are 13 times less likely to graduate than their 4th grade peers who are proficient in reading. Despite the importance of this critical and pivotal moment, recent Arizona state testing results show that more than 70% of all 3rd graders are not proficient in reading at grade level. The statistical likelihood of these children experiencing poverty, homelessness, incarceration, and poor health as adults is grave. Azura Literacy addresses this crisis one child and one page at a time. Leveraging its partnerships with like-minded organizations, weve provided more than 800 hours of free online reading tutoring to children and distributed more than 19,000 physical books this year. 100% of the students involved in the online tutoring scored improved reading accuracyproof it is possible to change the statistics and the life trajectory -- of thousands of children.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)- Tax preparation services are costly, and many low- and moderate-income families do not have the resources to file their taxes by the federal deadline. For the past fifteen years, the Azura VITA program has been the lead agency of the East Valley of Maricopa County to help these households with their tax filings at no cost. VITA leveraged a cadre of 140 IRS-certified tax preparers who volunteered more than 8,300 hours of their time at fourteen different locations in the cities of Mesa and Chandler. Through their efforts, more than $6.1 million has been returned to the pockets of our community members during the 2023-24 tax season. The average Federal refund was just over $1,600. These results are why many of our volunteer tax preparers return to work with us year after year after yearthey are fighting poverty in a tangible way.

Azura Veterans Coalition (formerly Mesa Veterans Resource Center) -By helping veterans access transportation, employment training, mental health counseling, housing assistance, support groups, and more, Azura Vets is serving those who have served. Using a trauma-informed, comprehensive case-management approach, Azura Vets empowers veterans and their families to achieve success, stability, and fulfillment beyond their military careers. This last year, the program served more than 600 veterans.