Austin Chapter CPAs: serving the community

The Austin Academy is current seeking two new full board members for 2008.  The board’s current members’ professional backgrounds range from legal, sales, HR, finance, IT to marketing.  We are in need of members with accounting background to round out the professional diversity of the board.  A civic minded CPA will help more this organization forward so it can extend free adult education services to more needing Austinites.  To be clear, this is not a request for pro bono CPA work.  For more information regarding potential board membership with The Austin Academy, please call Travis Arthur at 512-415-0593 or view our website at http://www.austinacademy.org/.

The Austin Academy is a community-based, adult educational service agency.  The Austin Academy empowers at-risk youth and economically disadvantaged adults by teaching them the long-term skills necessary to:

• Acquire and retain gainful employment
• Meet the hiring criteria of local employers
• Achieve economic and personal self-sufficiency
• Contribute to their community in a positive manner

The Austin Academy has consistently met and surpassed its goals by training participants and placing them in skilled jobs.  Serving between 250 and 300 low-income individuals per year, The Austin Academy was established to help individuals “develop careers, not just jobs.”  The majority of the participants enter the program with family incomes at or below 200% under the federal poverty level, therefore, The Austin Academy's goal for each individual is to receive a job paying $10 per hour in order financially better themselves.  In 2005 the average pay rate for one of our graduates, working full time was $10 per hour including benefits.