Azura McPherson is a 13-year-old, 8th-grade honor roll and National Junior Honor Society student at Smithfield Middle School. She lives in an economically challenged household with her mom and her deaf doggie named Bean. Azura never met her dad. He died one month before she was born from glioblastoma brain cancer.

She has an older sister who is currently in college at App State in the mountains of NC.

Azura is a really good kid. She participates in Trio, AVID, and has been recognized twice as a student of the month. She is currently the volleyball team manager, a member of the Battle of the Books team, art club, and First Priority club. Outside of school, she enjoys crochet club and helping with the teen advisory board for the public library of Johnston County. She often goes with her mom to help care for elderly friends with dementia and disabilities. Her mom and dad were both local paramedics.

Azura is aspiring to consider neonatology, forensic pathology, or sociology career fields.

Recently, she applied for and was accepted into two separate Harvard Medical School HMX pre-college programs. One is Pharmacology and the other is Immunology. The total registration cost is $3790. These are real university-based non-credit courses she can use on her future college applications.

She did apply for scholarships, and amazingly has received $1895, which is 50% of what she will need for these online programs. She has spoken with her counselors at school to see what other sponsorship options might be possible. She has a few dollars saved from her lemonade stands, but she isn’t old enough yet to pick up a part-time job.

Azura has watched her sister set such a good example working at retail jobs, paying her own way through college so far, and she knows she will follow that path when she is old enough. She didn’t get to participate in dance classes or many of the activities her peers are usually able to do. This is something she is very eager for and was a hard-earned opportunity. She is really deserving for it to pass her by for lack of resources. If she should meet or perhaps surpass her goal, any additional funds will be put into a college fund in her name.

Anyone local to Raleigh, NC she does have a UTMA college trust account recently established with Civic Bank.