When I walked into Wallenberg High School in San Francisco to observe a handful of tutors work with an AP-English class on their personal statements for their college applications, I thought back to the last time I had been in my own high school. It was 1991, Ray-Bans were in for the second time around, and I was as excited about my writing in Creative Writing-Honors class as I was to have my locker in the prime position of the front hall. Sixteen years later and I was walking into a profoundly different public school system, but one that was benefiting from the very program I was here to observe—826 Valencia, founded by one of my own high school alums, acclaimed author, Dave Eggers.
Just after college, my mom asked me if I remembered Dave Eggers from high school. I told her that I remembered the name, but not the face, and she said he had been written up in Newsweek for starting Might magazine in San Francisco. Six years later, I got an e-mail from a friend telling me Eggers had written a literary hit. Egger’s first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, brought me back to similar angst-filled memories in our Truman Show-like suburb, while my family navigated its own dysfunctional melodrama.
What grew as a seed from fertile ground was Egger’s next venture in 826 Valencia, a tutoring program for public kids to give back to the community that had helped launch his career. This led to 826 National, which is now the parent organization of seven centers across the country. Launched in 2002 at the address in San Francisco’s Mission district which bears its name, 826 Valencia’s mission was a one-room, drop-in tutoring center to help students aged six through eighteen find their voice through creative and expository writing. Later, organizers teamed with teachers in public schools to go in and work on one-on-one writing projects with their students.
Some of these in-school projects transform into full book projects, like Exactly, a series of children’s stories written by the high school students that I was here to observe, which gave the students a sense of the effort that goes into a published work. Students can also sign up for after school workshops on comic book writing, poetry and self-expression, and public speaking and debate, while volunteers work with kids in 826’s writing lab. For the heavy lifting of fundraising, 826 hosts adult evening and weekend workshops, which pull in local authors as teachers, as well as a series of stores whose profits benefit the centers.
PREVIOUS PAGE
