Proceeds from this book benefit youth literacy
A PERCENTAGE OF the cover price ofthis book goes to 826 National, a network of seven youth tutoring, writing, and publishing centers in seven cities around the country.
Since the birth of 826 National in 2002, our goal has been to assist students ages 6-18 with their writing skills while helping teachers get their classes passionate about writing. We do this with a vast army of volunteers who donate their time so we can give as much one-on-one attention as possible to the students whose writing needs it. Our mission is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.
Through volunteer support, each of the eight 826 chapters—in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, DC—provides drop-in tutoring, class field trips, writing workshops, and in-schools programs, all free of charge, for students, classes, and schools. 826 centers are especially committed to supporting teachers, offering services and resources for English language learners, and publishing student work. Each of the 826 chapters works to produce professional-quality publications written entirely by young people, to forge relationships with teachers in order to create innovative workshops and lesson plans, to inspire students to write and appreciate the written word, and to rally thousands of enthusiastic volunteers to make it all happen. By offering all of our programming for free, we aim to serve families who cannot afford to pay for the level of personalized instruction their children receive through 826 chapters. The demand for 826 National’s services is tremendous. In 2015 we worked with more than 5,300 active volunteers and over 30,000 students nationally, hosted 674 field trips, completed 208 major inschool projects, offered 329 evening and weekend workshops, held over 1,300 after-school tutoring sessions, and produced nearly 900 student publications. At many of our centers, our field trips are fully booked almost a year in advance, teacher requests for in-school tutor support continue to rise, and the majority of our evening and weekend workshops have waitlists.
826 National volunteers are local community residents, professional writers, teachers, artists, college students, parents, bankers, lawyers, and retirees from a wide range of professions. These passionate individuals can be found at all of our centers after school, sitting side by side with our students, providing one-on-one attention. They can be found running our field trips, or helping an entire classroom of local students learn how to write a story.
Read on to learn more about each 826 National chapter, including 826 Valencia’s newest outpost in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.
826 VALENCIA
Named for the street address of the building it occupies in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District, 826 Valencia opened on April 8, 2002, and consists of a writing lab, a street-front, student-friendly retail pirate store that partially funds its programs, and three satellite classrooms in local schools. 826 Valencia has developed programs that reach students at every possible opportunity—in school, after school, in the evenings, or on the weekends. Since its doors opened, over fifteen hundred volunteers—including published authors, magazine founders, SAT course instructors, documentary filmmakers, and other professionals—have donated their time to work with thousands of students.
After thirteen years of programming in San Francisco’s Mission District, 826 Valencia opened a second writing and tutoring center to support San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The doors to the new center at 180 Golden Gate opened on May 19, 2016. The storefront, King Carl’s Emporium, is open for business every day. The Tenderloin is San Francisco’s most densely populated neighborhood, and the home of 4,000 of the city’s children. It has the second highest incidence of food stamp use in the city, with a median household income of $23,804. The 826 Valencia Tenderloin Center expects to serve at least 2,000 students a year and recruit 300 volunteers.
826 NYC
826NYC’s writing center opened its doors in September 2004. Since then its programs have offered over one thousand students opportunities to improve their writing and to work side by side with hundreds of community volunteers. 826NYC has also built a satellite tutoring center, created in partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library, which has introduced library programs to an entirely new community of students. During the school year, 826NYC offers homework help and writing instruction for students 6 to 18. Tutors assist with homework in every subject and lead students in writing and reading-based enrichment activities. The center also publishes a handful of books of student writing each year.
826 LA
826LA benefits greatly from the wealth of cultural and artistic resources in the Los Angeles area.
The center regularly presents a free workshop at the Armand Hammer Museum in which esteemed artists, writers, and performers teach their craft. 826LA has collaborated with the J. Paul Getty Museum to create Community Photoworks, a months-long program that taught seventh-graders the basics of photographic composition and analysis, sent them into Los Angeles with cameras, and then helped them polish artist statements. Since opening in March 2005, 826LA has provided thousands of hours of free one-on-one writing instruction, held summer camps for English language learners, given students sportswriting training in the Lakers’ press room, and published love poems written from the perspectives of leopards.
826 CHICAGO
826 Chicago opened its writing lab and after-school tutoring center in the West Town community of Chicago, in the Wicker Park neighborhood. The setting is both culturally lively and teeming with schools: within one mile, there are fifteen public schools serving more than sixteen thousand students. The center opened in December 2005 and now has over five hundred volunteers. Its programs, as at all the 826 chapters, are designed to be both challenging and enjoyable. Ultimately, the goal is to strengthen each student’s power to express ideas effectively, creatively, confidently, and in his or her individual voice.
826 MICHIGAN
826 Michigan opened its doors on June 1, 2005, on South State Street in Ann Arbor. In October of 2007 the operation moved downtown, to a new and improved location on Liberty Street. This move enabled the opening of Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair in May 2008.
The shop carries everything the robot owner might need, from positronic brains to grasping appendages to solar cells. 826 Michigan is the only 826 not named after a city because it serves students all over southeastern Michigan, hosting in-school residencies in Ypsilanti schools, and providing workshops for students in Detroit, Lincoln, and Willow Run school districts. The center also has a packed workshop schedule on site every semester, with offerings on making pop-up books, writing sonnets, creating screenplays, producing infomercials, and more.
826 BOSTON
826 Boston provides free writing and tutoring programs for Boston students ages 6 to 18, serving more than 3,500 students. The center is located in Roxbury’s Egleston Square—a culturally diverse community south of downtown that stretches into Jamaica Plain, Rox-bury, and Dorchester. 826 Boston maintains a network of more than 2,500 volunteers from the Boston community—including professional writers, artists, and teachers. More than 600 volunteers regularly devote their time and talents to its programs.
826 DC
826DC opened its doors to the city’s Columbia Heights neighborhood in October 2010. 826DC provides after-school tutoring, field trips, after-school workshops, in-school tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with the publication of student work. It also offers free admission to the Museum of Unnatural History, the center’s unique storefront. In 2011, 826 DC students read their poetry before President Barack Obama.