826 National is a family of seven nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing.
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.
Each chapter offers drop-in tutoring, field trips, workshops, and in-schools programs — all free of charge — for children, classes, and schools with particular interests or particular needs.
826 is especially committed to supporting teachers, offering services and resources for English language learners, and publishing student work. All locations offer unique retail experiences as well.
826 National
826 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-642-5905 x 202
415-642-5914 fax Email us
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Take a sneak peak inside 826 Valencia’s 2008-2009 Young Authors’ Book Project, documented by San Francisco filmmaker Ira Chute. The clip features Ms. Pirette McKamey’s Senior English class at Mission High School, as well as 826 Valencia tutors hard at work on the writing project. Follow this film for an intimate inside-look into a day in the busy life of an 826 writing center.
We are offering a one-day seminar packed with information about our organization. You'll learn details about the programs we offer, gain inside information into our operations, tour our writing center, and have the opportunity to meet and chat with 826 Valencia and 826 National co-founder Nínive Clements Calegari.
Join us on Friday, February 20, 2009 from 9am-5pm at our founding location, 826 Valencia in San Francisco. The fee is $300, and includes breakfast and lunch. Visit here to sign up.
The 826 family is very saddened because of the loss of our friend Paul Newman. Not only did he visit several 826 locations to see the tutors and students in action, but he also delighted in the retail stores. We are enormously blessed to have been the recipients of Mr. Newman’s financial generosity as well as his vote of confidence. We send our love and strength to his family and mourn his passing.
Are you interested in working with a growing educational nonprofit with a national reach? Do you care about making a positive impact in the lives of young people? Do photocopying and database management thrill you to no end? You have a home with us!
826 National is seeking an intern at to help us: coordinate projects, assist with national and local event-planning, research, run errands, offer administrative support, and lots more. Internships are unpaid and typically require a 15-hour weekly commitment for at least 10 weeks. Excellent writing and oral communication skills are a must, as well as a true passion for organization, tedium, and good, hard work. To apply for an internship in San Francisco, please email your resume with relevant experience and a cover letter to Yvonne Wang.
If you have 3 minutes and 28 seconds, you won’t want to miss this video about 826 Michigan’s storefront, in which Programs Director and Store Manager Amy Sumerton shares her expertise curating and selling robot supplies with the Ann Arbor News . The article will prove insightful for budding entrepreneurs and those interested in 826’s storefront business model.
If you don’t live in the area, the video is a great way to get a good feel for the Liberty Street Robot Supply and Repair shop, and if you do live nearby but haven’t had a chance to pop in, it will no doubt entice you to do so.
What an exciting year it's been. All of our chapters have recently published stunning books, so please pick one up for yourself, and your family, friends, pets, bookshelves, coffee tables...
This One Time
For the last five months, 826 Seattle volunteers and staff have been working with the teachers and students at Hamilton to get these stories on paper and the results are hilarious, heartbreaking, and inspiring. This is the first of two anthologies this year with the students at Hamilton International Middle School. To purchase, please contact 826 Seattle.
Tall Tales & True Stories
Welcome Tall Tales & True Stories, the latest 826 Michigan in-school publication! Coming out of a year's worth of work at Childs Elementary School in Ypsilanti, this flip book (half of it is upside-down!) chronicles the personal histories and incredible fantasies of almost thirty young writers. Featuring a charming cover illustration by Ian Huebert, Tall Tales & True Stories is as beautiful to look at as it is to read. To purchase, click here.
I Wish They Would Have Asked Me
After a year of collaborative efforts between students, teachers, administrators of The English High School, and 826 Boston, they are celebrating the release their first publication, a 180-page anthology of essays, poems, short stories, and letters written by 11th and 12th grade students. I Wish They Would Have Asked Me covers themes of education, immigration, violence, family, and personal stories of change, struggle, and perseverance. To purchase a copy, contact 826 Boston.
Seeing Through the Fog
This collection of stories and essays written by seventy-two seniors at Gateway High School in San Francisco represents the voices of students who know the city inside and out. Meant for locals, tourists, and armchair travelers alike, this book doesn’t wow you with facts about how tall the Transamerica Pyramid is or with reviews of the best five-star restaurants in the city. It’s about the smell of a burrito shop in the Mission, running away from bison in Golden Gate Park, or bartering for lunch at the farmers’ market. It’s about the local characters, slang, a couple ghosts, and some secret places. These students offer city experience and know-how, and they will entertain and guide you to new places and new ways of seeing through the San Francisco fog. Please visit 826 Valencia's store for details.
Dead End Door re:Vealed, a 'zine of secrets
After a year of work, 826LA, re:Active magazine, and students from L.A. High are ready to release Dead End Door re:Vealed, a 'zine of secrets. Full of student writing and art, including transcendent and transfigured photography, tales of elementary-school terror and young adult soul-searching, and the opening chapter of a Japanese-style manga, re:Vealed is sure to electrify and enlighten. Go here to purchase.
Right In Front of Us
Ninth graders at Aspira High School have written these powerful personal essays about their young lives. In the foreword, author Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here) writes, “These tales will surprise you. They take twists and turns that are unexpected, that are jarring, that feel, well, so real. You’ll sense these kids’ defiance, their hurt, their exuberance, their yearning to be heard.” Get yours at the Boring Store.
STEW, The Magazine About Et Cetera
The first issue of STEW, The Magazine About Et Cetera, is now available! The debut issue is a collection of stories written by juniors at the Secondary School for Journalism in Brooklyn. These articles, based on interviews and independent reporting, were written in the 2007-2008 academic school year. The Brooklyn Issue, edited by Kaila Strickland, Janaye Solomon, and Antonia Hope, features 24 articles about changes in Brooklyn. Featured stories include the examination of an abandoned house, a look back at New York City's P-schools, and a close look at recent trends in New York City public schools. Copies of STEW are available at the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company. Pick one up today!
The sign out front reads "The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company" and claims to be the "One Stop for All Your Foe-Battling Needs." The store, in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood, is actually the home to 826NYC — a nonprofit center that helps kids with creative writing.
Past the mannequins wearing the latest in crime-fighting attire, tucked behind a hidden door, there's a spacious room filled with bookshelves, couches and tables.
"I think when you walk into that space, your imagination just kind of explodes," says volunteer Katey Parker. "Everything seems possible when you're walking through a superhero supply store."
Five young women who live in Ann Arbor’s Hikone public housing site are seeing their own creative writing published in a very unique way—on the interior of Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) buses.
This project is the second in an ongoing partnership between AATA and 826michigan and is also part of 826michigan’s ongoing collaboration with CAN (Community Action Network), the organization that oversees Hikone Community Center.
"This is just one of the many creative projects 826michigan has brought to Hikone students,” says Joan Doughty, CAN Executive Director. “They bring such an amazing energy, a freshness and enthusiasm with them; the kids love every activity 826 brings to the community center. Imagine being an 8-year-old, knowing that your creative writing work is driving around town in a bus. This project makes students feel like they truly matter in our community, and it encourages them to continue to practice their writing.”
826michigan is a nonprofit writing center that provides free academic and literary arts programs to local young people. The programs aim to teach the skill of writing but also to give students unique and creative opportunities to engage with their community, to express themselves distinctly and confidently and to prepare young people for their futures. 826michigan serves about 1500 students each year with programs like this one.
Rosie Iordanova, a Dearborn Heights resident and research technician with the University of Michigan Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center, has been serving as a volunteer writing teacher at Hikone since last fall. She says, “I really enjoy being able to offer the students a new way to express themselves and all their creative talents. I think in this experience they learned that there's beauty and inspiration even in everyday experiences.”
The students’ writing will be installed on AATA buses beginning July 3 and will be featured on every single bus in the fleet until August 31.
Maps and Legends is Michael Chabon's first book of nonfiction. According to McSweeney's, the publishers of this collection, Maps and Legends is a "love song in sixteen parts — a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around "serious" literature in favor of an wide-ranging affection. His own fiction, meanwhile, is explored from the perspective of personal history: post-collegiate desperation sparks his debut, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh; procrastination and doubt reveal the way toward Wonder Boys; a love of comics and a basement golem combine to create the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; and an enigmatic Yiddish phrasebook unfurls into The Yiddish Policeman's Union."
Thanks to Michael Chabon's continued generosity and support for 826, proceeds from Maps and Legends will benefit 826 National!
Ann Arborites and visitors have a new shopping destination this spring: 826michigan’s Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair. The shop, which opens Saturday, May 17th in 826michigan’s space at 115 E. Liberty Street, Ann Arbor, is stocked with robot-themed toys, novelties and unique gifts.
The Grand Opening event, sponsored by GOOD Magazine, includes a robot dance off, an 826michigan student-performed and robot-inspired puppet theater presentation, refreshments and the public’s first chance to view and purchase items from the store.
Never been to a robot supply and repair shop? Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair carries the perfect combination of products for robot enthusiasts and robots themselves. Here are some examples:
826CHI presents: PROM! Join us on Saturday, May 17, 2008, 8 p.m.-midnight, for the (secondhand) formal event of the season! There will be free drinks (21+), a silent auction, and the musical stylings of The Power of Love and DJ Frier Tuck. No dates are required.
Buy your tickets for $38.26 (see the 8, the 2, the 6…) in advance here or $50 at the door (which, like the event, will be at Pulaski Park Fieldhouse, 1419 W. Blackhawk St., just a few blocks from 826CHI). Hope to see you there!
826NYC hosts a Dungeons and Dragons game unlike any other to raise money for its free writing and tutoring programs on Friday, May 9th, 7 to Midnight, at 826NYC (372 5th Avenue, Brooklyn)
That's right, fellas. Dungeons and Dragons isn't just for teenage boys anymore. We know you miss those late Friday nights in your parents' basement, with your friends, your Doritos-stained fingers and your lucky D20. And now that one thing that was missing from those perfect Friday nights wants to join the game: girls.
To join the game, all you need to do is visit http://www.826nyc.org/DnD to create your character, then start raising money to buy magic spells, weapons and items, to ensure that your dwarf, warrior, wizard, or thief comes home with the prize. And all the money you and your character raise will go to support the free writing programs at 826NYC.
Next Tuesday, April 8th, join 826CHI as they celebrate the release of their latest student publication, Right In Front of Us, a collection of powerful short stories written by forty-seven Chicago high school students. The festivities will begin with readings by the students, followed by a reception—complete with a book signing by the accomplished authors. Foreword contributor and author of There Are No Children Here, Alex Kotlowitz, will also speak. The event will be held at Aspira High School (currently located at the Haugan Middle School Campus, 3729 W. Leland). Doors open at 6:00 p.m., readings begin at 6:30. Books will be available at the event for $12, cash or check, as well as at The Boring Store.
826 Boston and GOOD Magazine are pleased to present The North American Symposium on Sasquatch Research – a night of drinks, music, readings, and “undauntable” science – hosted at 826 Boston’s new store, The Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute. Featured will be comedian Eugene Mirman (HBO’s Flight of the Conchords), acclaimed authors Jim Shepard and Josh Bearman, and renowned cryptozoologist Loren Coleman.
Symposium registrants can browse the Institute’s strange and wondrous wares including specimens like Baby Giant Centipedes and field research supplies such as monoculars, nets, Anti-Chupacabra Gloves, and the Institute’s inimitable Jungle Hygiene Kit.
As a recipient of this years' TED Prize, 826 National cofounder, Dave Eggers, was given the opportunity to make "a wish to change the world." At the recent award ceremony, Dave presented this wish:
"I wish that you—you personally and every creative individual and organization you know—will find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area, and that you'll then tell the story of how you got involved, so that within a year we have 1,000 examples of innovative public-private partnerships."
In order to make this wish a reality, the great folks from Hot Studio and TED, in collaboration with 826 National, developed the website OnceUponASchool.org. Here, interested people and private companies can pledge their support to teachers and community organizations that need them. Please visit this site to find ways to get involved.
TUTORING
826 sites are packed five days a week with students who come in for free one-on-one tutoring after school. More »
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STUDENT PUBLISHING
Each year we partner with an acclaimed author to work closely with a teacher and students from a low-income school to create an unique and professionally-made book.
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FIELD TRIPS
Up to four times a week at many of our sites, 826 welcomes an entire class for a morning of high-energy learning.
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IN-SCHOOLS
It is not feasible for all classes to come to us, so we dispatch teams of volunteers into local schools.
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WORKSHOPS
826 offers free workshops that provide in-depth writing instruction in a variety of areas that schools often don’t include in their curriculum. More »
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SCHOLARSHIPS
We award three $10,000 scholarships each spring for students entering college the upcoming fall. More »
