Volunteers

826 National volunteers are local community residents—professional writers, teachers, artists, college students, parents, bankers, lawyers, unemployed individuals, 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, or assisting student writers during one of our Young Authors’ Book Programs. All day and in a variety of ways, our volunteers are actively connecting with youth from the communities we serve.

In addition to support with writing projects, we depend on our volunteers to help us with more specialized tasks—grant writing, event coordination, outreach, website maintenance, training expertise (provided by credentialed-teacher and university-professor volunteers), computer hardware and software support, written and verbal bilingual translations, help with construction projects, book design and layout, marketing expertise, and a variety of other talent-demanding needs at different chapters. Many of our veteran volunteers have taken on leadership roles as well. Abner Morales, who has been with us at 826 Valencia for over three years, regularly comes in on Saturdays to run new volunteer orientation meetings and help translate our workshop advertisements into Spanish. Other volunteers like Jenny Traig, Brian Gray, Ian Evans, and Abigail Jacobs serve as ‘point people’ during our drop-in tutoring sessions, and are always ready to assist our programs coordinator with managing other volunteers and tutoring students. Each center has its own vibrant team of talented, inspiring, generous, and dedicated volunteers that make our programs possible.

« Back

Home