Program Helps Students Express Themselves with Creative Writing

07 December 2011

Students write at desks at one of the eight 826 stores.

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

826 is the name of a nonprofit organization that works to help students become better writers by thinking creatively. 826 is also the address of the first center where this literary arts program began in two thousand two.

Author Dave Eggars and educator Ninive Calegari started the program in California at 826 Valencia Street in San Francisco. It now serves thirty thousand students through writing and tutoring centers in eight American cities.

Eight twenty-six Valencia Street is a fun place for students and visitors. At the front is a pirate supply store. Think of the kind of place where Captain Jack Sparrow from "

Pirates

of the Caribbean" might shop.

Leigh Lehman is the executive director. She says the idea of entering through a pirate store is meant to get students not to think of the place as an education center.

LEIGH LEHMAN: "'This is not school; this is not a tutoring center. This is a place for me to be myself and to find my voice and find my creativity and excel.'"

The goal is to help public school students between six and eighteen years old write creatively. During the day, teachers bring classes on field trips and volunteers help with writing projects.