826 National
826 Chapters

826 Valencia

Named for our location 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 our programs, and a satellite classroom in a nearby middle school. We have developed programs that reach students at every possible opportunity—in school, after school, in the evenings, or on the weekends. Since we opened our doors, over 1000 volunteers—including published authors, magazine founders, SAT course instructors, documentary filmmakers, and other professionals—have donated their time to work with thousands of students. These incredible volunteers allow us to offer all of our services for free.

  • Opened: April 2002
  • Serves: San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified School District
  • Neighborhood: The Mission District
  • Number of Volunteers: 1,400 
  • Most Recent Publication: Show of Hands— Essays by students of Mission High School reflecting on the golden rule
  • Storefront: Pirate Supply Store
  • Field Trips Hosted: 128 in 2008/09
  • In-Schools Sessions: 570 in 2008/09
  • Tutoring Space: 2,000 square feet
  • Workshops Offered: 36 in 2008/09
  • Average Daily Drop-in Tutoring Attendance: 48 students
  • Total number of students served: 6,370 in 2008/09
  • Staff: Leigh Lehman, Justin Carder, Emilie Coulson, Marisa Gedney, Margaret McCarthy, María Inés Montes, Cherylle Taylor, Miranda Tsang, Vickie Vertiz
  • Board of Directors: Barb Bersche, Jennifer Bunshoft, Nínive Calegari, Dave Eggers, Abner Morales, Bita Nazarian, Alexandra Quinn, Vendela Vida, Richard Wolfgram

For more information check out 826 Valencia.



826NYC

826NYC's writing center opened its doors in September 2004. Since then their programs have offered over one thousand students opportunities to improve their writing and to work side by side with community volunteers. This past year they built their first satellite tutoring center, created in partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library, which has introduced their programs to an entirely new community of students. In 2007, they are planning to publish five new books of student writing.

  • Opened: June 2004
  • Serves: New York City Public Schools
  • Neighborhood: Park Slope, Brooklyn
  • Number of Volunteers: 800 
  • Most Recent Publication: STEW, The Magazine About Et Cetera —A collection of stories written by juniors at the Secondary School for Journalism in Brooklyn
  • Storefront: Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co.
  • Field Trips Hosted: 66 in 2008/09
  • In-Schools Sessions:  44 in 2008/09
  • Tutoring Space: 1,200 square feet
  • Workshops Offered: 33 in 2008/09
  • Total number of students served: 2,094 in 2008/09
  • Staff: Scott Seeley, Kate Ackerman, Joan Kim, Joshua Martin, Anthony Mascorro, Sarah Pollock, Chris Roberti
  • Board of Directors: Nínive Calegari, Brenda Chan Casimir, Dave Eggers, Bill Heinzen, Jeanette Lee, Tynnetta McIntosh, Jon Scieszka, Sarah Vowell, Sean Wilsey

For more information check out 826NYC.



826LA

826LA benefits greatly from the wealth of cultural and artistic resources in the Los Angeles area. Every month, they present a free workshop at the Armand Hammer Museum in which esteemed artists, writers, and performers teach their craft. And last spring they 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, they’ve provided thousands of hours of free one-on-one writing instruction. They’ve sent volunteers into schools all over Los Angeles, held two summer camps for English language learners, given students sportswriting training in the Lakers press room, and published love poems written from the perspective of leopards.

  • Opened: March 2005
  • Serves: Los Angeles Unified School District
  • Neighborhood: Venice Beach, Echo Park
  • Number of Volunteers: 1,182 
  • Most Recent Publication: Sheep Can't Fly— Compositions by Garfield High School students, foreword by Father Greg Boyle
  • Storefront: Echo Park Time Travel Mart
  • Field Trips Hosted: 56 in 2008/09
  • In-Schools Sessions:  143 in 2008/09
  • Tutoring Space: 3,500 square feet
  • Workshops Offered: 353 in 2008/09
  • Total number of students served: 3,626 in 2008/09
  • Staff: Joel Arquillos, Bonnie Chau, Christina Galante, Danny Hom, Julius Diaz Panoriñgan
  • Board of Directors: Miguel Arteta, Mac Barnett, Joshuah Bearman, Nínive Calegari, Dave Eggers, Jodie Evans, John T. Gilbertson, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, Keith Knight, Melissa Mathison, Salvador Plascencia, Sally Willcox

For more information about this or other events, please check out 826LA.



826CHI

826CHI or Chicago, opened its writing lab and drop-in 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 comprising more than 16,000 students.

  • Opened: October 2005
  • Serves: Chicago Public Schools
  • Neighborhood: Wicker Park
  • Number of Volunteers: 525
  • Most Recent Publication: The 826CHI Compendium Vol. 1— An anthology of pieces authored by students of 826CHI
  • Storefront: The Boring Store
  • Field Trips Hosted: 96 in 2008/09
  • Tutoring Space: 1,600 square feet
  • Workshops Offered: 56 in 2008/09
  • Total number of students served: 4,278 in 2008/09
  • Staff: Mara Fuller O'Brien, Corinne Fetter, Pat Mohr, Patrick Shaffner, Kait Steele
  • Board of Directors:  Stephanie D’Alessandro, Staci Davidson, Monica Eng, Larry Feinberg, Ira Glass, Justine Jentes, Trista Hertz, Dan Kuruna, Kyra Kyles, Mara O’Brie, Matt Schrecengost, Jan Zasowski

For more information, check out 826CHI.



826 Seattle

Their writing center is in Greenwood, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city. The sheer number of Latino businesses might make you think it was the predominant ethnic group, but the Asian community eclipses them statistically. During tutoring, they also have a significant number of Ethiopian children, which leads them to believe their community is growing in importance. Thankfully, this multicultural community seems to love them and their store, the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co., whose revenue helps support their writing programs. Nearby restaurants have donated food for their workshop “How to Write Food Reviews.” The local library calls them frequently for additional workshop flyers.

  • Opened: October 2005
  • Serves: Seattle Public School District and greater Seattle area school districts
  • Neighborhood: Greenwood
  • Number of Volunteers: 176
  • Most Recent Publication: What It Takes: Stories of Bravery— Tales of heroism by students of Hamilton International High School
  • Storefront: Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co.
  • In-Schools Sessions: 59 in 2008/09
  • Field Trips Hosted: 64 hosted during the 2008/09 school year
  • Tutoring Space: 2,000 square feet
  • Workshops Offered: 32 in 2008/09
  • Total number of students served: 2,059 in 2008/09
  • Staff: Teri Hein, Samar Abulhassan, Justin Allan, Alex Allred, Toffer Lehnherr, Sarah Beecroft
  • Board of Directors:  Sherman Alexie, David Brotherton, Elizabeth Duffell, Teri Hein, Pam MacEwan, Shawn Rediger, Ann Senechal, Joan Hiller, Matthew Leavenworth

For more information on these developments and more, check out 826Seattle.



826michigan

826michigan opened its doors on June 1, 2005, on South State Street in Ann Arbor. Two and a half years later, in October of 2007 they moved downtown, to a new and improved location on Liberty Street. This move enabled them to open the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair in May of 2008, a shop that carries everything the robot owner might need, from positronic brains to grasping appendages to solar cells and more.

826michigan is the only 826 not named after a city because they serve students all over southeastern Michigan, hosting all their in-schools residencies in Ypsilanti schools, and providing workshops for students in Detroit, and Lincoln and Willow Run school districts. They offer after-school tutoring at their location and off-site at a school in Ypsilanti. They also have a packed workshop schedule on-site every semester, with offerings that range in topic from making pop-up books to writing sonnets to creating a screenplay to producing an infomercial and more.

  • Opened: June 2005
  • Serves: Ann Arbor Public Schools, Ypsilanti Public School District, Lincoln Consolidated Schools, and Willow Run Community Schools
  • Neighborhood: Ann Arbor
  • Number of Volunteers: 316
  • Most Recent Publication: How to Rise, or I Put My Heart into the Close — A collection of personal narratives, poetry, and short fiction by forty-six seniors at Ypsilanti High School.
  • Storefront: Liberty Street Robot Supply and Repair Store
  • In-Schools Sessions: 257 in 2008/09
  • Tutoring Space: Over 1,000 square feet
  • Workshops Offered: 53 in 2008/09
  • Total number of students served: 1,737 in 2008/09
  • Staff: Amanda Uhle, Amy Sumerton
  • Board of Directors: Angela Kujava, Christopher Taylor, Keith Hood, Jennifer Traig, Laura Wagner, Bruce DeMaine, Linda Adler-Kassner, Jacqui Robbins, Richard Weise, Laura London

For more details on this and other 826michigan happenings, check out 826michigan.



826 BOSTON

826 Boston kicked off its programming in the spring of 2007 by inviting authors Junot Díaz, Steve Almond, Holly Black, and Kelly Link to lead writing workshops at the English High School. The visiting writers challenged students to modernize fairy tales, invent their ideal school, and tell their stories. Afterwards a handful of dedicated volunteers followed up with weekly visits to help students develop their writing craft. The upshot will be a publication rich with essays, stories, poems, wish lists, and questions “for which there seem to be no answers.”

We’ve thrown open our doors in Roxbury’s Egleston Square—a culturally diverse community south of downtown that stretches into Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and Dorchester. We’re neighbors with more than 20 Boston schools, a dance studio, the Boston Neighborhood Network (a public-access television station), and many Caribbean, African American, and Latin American businesses and restaurants. We’re thrilled with our sunny new home, where we plan to offer field trips and workshops to students, as well as after-school tutoring and myriad publishing opportunities.

  • Opened: September 2007
  • Serves: Boston Public Schools and greater Boston area school districts
  • Neighborhood: Roxbury, Egleston Square
  • Number of Volunteers: 548
  • Most Recent Publication: 2%of 2% of the World's Stories —Collected works from students of 826 Boston
  • Storefront: The Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute
  • In-Schools Sessions: 134 in 2008/09
  • Tutoring Space: 1,336 square feet
  • Workshops Offered: 44 in 2008/09
  • Total number of students served: 1,913 in 2008/09
  • Staff: Daniel Johnson, Lindsey Plait, Karen Sama, Ryan Smith
  • Board of Directors: Kevin Feeney, Jon Fullerton, John Giordano, Helen Jacobson, Paul Oh, Junia Yearwood

For more details on 826 Boston, check out 826 Boston.



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