Junior Achievement of Arizona

Junior Achievement prepares AZ youth to succeed in work and life. We do this by giving students the knowledge and skills they need to manage their money, plan for their future, and make smart academic, career, and economic choices.

**Donations to Junior Achievement of Arizona are eligible for the AZ Charitable Tax Credit (up to $470/individual and $938/couple). Make a donation and get it back dollar-for-dollar on your AZ tax return. It's not too late to apply it against your 2024 AZ taxes!**

JA helps kids see their potential and gives them the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Every year, we prepare over 190,000 primarily low-income and diverse students to think critically, manage their money, prepare to enter the workforce, and ultimately pursue the future they deserve. Hope can't wait - tomorrow needs us today.

Will you consider a gift to JA this #AZGivesDay?

In whatever way you choose to participate this year, we ask you to come together with the AZ community and support charities that are doing critical work to hold our community together and set us on the path to a better future. There are lots of important causes that need our support - we hope you'll count JA among them!

**We serve students with diverse backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses throughout Arizona, primarily focusing on students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch. **

Testimonials

It's a story that begins an all-too familiar way. Mary, a young Latina high school student from an underprivileged community in South Phoenix, begins her senior year of high school - all while raising her infant son. She's faced with societal stereotypes and pressure from her family to skip going to college, but Mary is ambitious, driven, and determined to exceed expectations. With hopes of being a first-generation college graduate, Mary divides her time between a local public school and Metro Tech High School, an academic magnet school.

Through Metro Tech, she has the opportunity to participate in Junior Achievement's JA You're Hired! program. Designed to prepare Arizona high school students with critical career readiness skills, JA You're Hired! teaches Mary how to write a resume, prepare for interviews, and present herself professionally.

Then Mary gets the chance to apply these new skills with hundreds of other students at the JA You're Hired! Challenge, where she participates in various workshops and even has the opportunity to interview for summer internships.

Mary remembers, "I was very nervous. I'd never had a job before, never completed an application, never interviewed. But I appreciated that the interviews were low-key, low-pressure; I preferred that model to a normal one-on-one, alone in a room."

To Mary's surprise, she's offered two summer positions and eagerly accepts a role as an intern in the HR file room at the University of Phoenix. To ensure she's ready for her internship, she participates in weekly sessions with Junior Achievement to learn more career readiness skills such as budgeting and presenting. Two months after starting her internship, she's impressed her supervisor so much that she's offered a full-time position.

"Without the JA program, I don't know what I would be doing now. I'm really grateful because the program gave me the key to the door," she says.

Mary is confident she would have gone on to achieve her goals, but says that her experience with Junior Achievement gave her the extra push she needed to become the positive example she wants to be for her son. In fact, her mind had been set on pursuing a position in the financial world, but with help from Junior Achievement, she realized her passion for HR and overseeing projects.

Six years later, Mary is still employed with University of Phoenix. After a series of promotions, she has become an HR Information Systems Analyst. She's nearly finished with her Bachelor's degree in project management, being provided to her at no cost by the University of Phoenix. One day, she hopes to be the head of her department, "a big leap from the HR file room internship," she emphasizes.

She hopes that her son will get to experience Junior Achievement for himself in school so that he, too, can benefit from all that the Junior Achievement and the JA You're Hired! program offered her.